Introduction to The Enschede Vision

Right, I was set to, even if nobody else would, save the world. I became active in the Enschede scene. I joined a youth club for Sustainable Development. A real buzz word from the early nineties. What did sustainable mean again back then?

Mrs. Brundtland from Norway wrote a nice report (Our Common Future), I quote:

Sustainable development is to fulfil our present needs without harming future generations in the fulfilment of theirs.

Soon I had another definition:

Live in such a way you can sustain it, you can keep it up.

It was an unusual club because we really worked together. In spite of the fact there were kids from various religious and political views. We were there for a common goal. The Jongerenplatform Duurzame Ontwikkeling Enschede (JP Doe) had as its goal to make and keep the city liveable in fifty years time. So far it’s been 10 years, still 40 more to go.

One of our first actions was a successful lobby with the town of Enschede to join Local Agenda 21. That’s a story in its own right. In 1992 the United Nations decided in Rio de Janeiro to “do something about it”, on the UNCTED conference. They too had read the report of the Club of Rome. But they decided they couldn’t do anything about it! We, world leaders, decide here that we won’t do anything about this problem because we are not able. We are too far away from the citizens.

That’s why they called upon the communities of the World to join the Local Agenda 21 (LA 21). Let the municipalities figure it out. And so it was. Thanks to the VOGM subsidy of the Ministry the LA 21 was introduced in several Dutch municipalities. In Enschede we got a grant of 200.000 Guilders. That was our first feat of arms.

But it gave us some considerable problems: now the Municipality is joining in, what do we want them to do? Thanks to the amount of action material that we received we discovered the Vision-Strategy-Action point approach and decided to form our vision first. The Enschede Vision.

About ten youths met up every two weeks, discussed, made notes. Those notes were elaborated and discussed again. After almost 18 months it all became clear. Everything, absolutely everything has to be brought back in a cycle and those cycles have to be kept as small as possible, by using as little energy as possible. It’s the only way to keep everything going.

This still is the foundation of colourcash. These are the principles that make the economy, from a technical point of view, work. The rest is a game, a modus operandi of cycles and energy. The principles themselves are best explained in the original Enschede Vision.