Yuppies, young urban professionals, are often discarded as conservative and only interested in making money to buy expensive “toys” such as cars, kitchen gadgetry, hobby equipment, the latest electronic anything, and other luxury items. But is this image many hold of them really true?

Engineering companies such as ABB start to attract more and more yuppie-engineers because of the green solutions  they provide (e.g. smart grids). ExxonMobil on the other hand experiences problems in attracting these promising individuals, even though they have put on a huge ad campaign to boost their green credentials. The new generation is not only attracted by profit, but also wants to put their dreams into practice. While environmental activists provide the necessary political backing, the green yuppies will put words into practise in terms of government and business policy.

After my degree in political sciences (KU Leuven), I have worked for almost one year at the European Policy Centre (EPC). There I had to opportunity to concretise my concerns about our planet in policy recommendations to the European Union. At the EPC I worked on the topic of smart green growth, i.e. boosting green growth by the permeation of ICT in our lives, tools and environment. I am currently co-authoring an EPC working paper on this issue. Interest in the economics behind climate change policy then finally took me to taking up economics at the VUB in Brussels.

So while I’m no yuppie at the moment, I continue to be ambitious in meeting our common concern about the planet earth. I believe the time has also come to translate climate change concerns and goals in real policy. In my blog I will therefore focus on concrete green policy recommendations to governments worldwide.

My starting point will be the European Union. Because, besides the Brussels’ beer, my other great love is Europe. I love wandering through its cities, discovering its different cultures and meeting the diverse and unique European peoples. I have also become fascinated by the organization once founded for peace, the European Union.

Alongside the stories on rescue packages, the green world economy and personal experiences, I will thus mainly cover concrete policy recommendations coming from European experiences in greening transport, buildings, electrical power grids or even whole cities.

Hope to see you here again soon. Let me also say that I love comments, remarks, questions and a lot of buzz from all of you th!nkers and r!aders.

Waldo

www.rationaleuropean.eu