Case Studies/Except, Integrated Sustainability
Except, Integrated Sustainability
Creative Commons has proved invaluable in both acquisition of knowledge, research and images, and the creation and sharing of our own designs, reports, and projects. It's not only been the availability of source material that matters, the speed at which material is available is invaluable for large productions with many sources. Except is commited to the free flow of ideas and information sharing, from our open office to our open-source software.” — Tom Bosschaert
Overview
Except is a global company that provides context-specific solutions in research, consulting, and design. Except partners with companies, governments, and NGOs to chart a path towards a sustainable future.
Except projects have included new business strategies, process and value chain optimizations, software, buildings, products, ecosystem designs, agricultural systems or a series of workshops, to name a few.
One of Except's most recent projects is a sustainable vision for the social housing area Schiebroek-Zuid in Rotterdam. The project, commissioned by housing corporation Vestia and agricultural research network InnovatieNetwerk provides a flexible and exemplary roadmap for converting the neighborhood into a self-sufficient and sustainable area.
As a first of its kind, the Sustainable Schiebroek-Zuid Project provides a template approach to converting a commonly problematic housing typology into a beautiful, equitable and resilient sustainable community. Except hopes that this project will serve as an example for the numerous social housing areas with similar typologies worldwide. The project is available free of charge, under CC licensing (CC BY-SA-NC), on Except's website.
Motivations
Except supports freedom of information and knowledge sharing. Creative Commons licensing plays an essential role in facilitating our commitment to supporting the free and open flow of knowledge and sharing the fruits of their work with others.
In 2009 Except made a decade of work retroactively available under Creative Commons licensing. All current work is published under Creative Commons and this is complimented by the use of open source software. We require Creative Commons licensing to be part of each project, and this is part of our set of client requirements at the start of each project.
Impact
Except views knowledge-sharing as an integral part of its ultimate goal: creating the foundation for a sustainable future. CC-licensing allows us to more easily reach people and share ideas across geographic and disciplinary boundaries. We believe that CC provides the legal framework to spread our solutions, vision-documents, and in-house integrated approach beyond company clients to practitioners and interested parties worldwide. In this sense, we regard Creative Commons as a building block for a sustainable society (and our gratitude is abundant).
In addition to aiding Except's commitment to knowledge sharing, CC-licensing also fosters our project processes. In the Schiebroek-Zuid project and others, we were able to quickly create a database of CC-licensed images for the project vision books. The more CC images Except is able to use, the more time is made available for research, analysis, and creative ventures -- which in turn Except can then share through Creative Commons licensing.
In addition, we save time by not having to personally respond to requests ofr image or data rights. everyone is free to use them, within the domain of the CC license, which are clear and for everybody to look up. Due to this we've been able to cut administration time for our PR department significantly.
