Director, Except Integrated Sustainability
Tom Bosschaert is the director of Except Integrated Sustainability, a research, strategy, and development agency based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, since 1999. Except brings together 30 experts from science, engineering, design, and business to collaboratively on innovative solutions for urban (re)development, industry, food, and business. Tom is the main developer of Except's integrated systems analysis and development framework Symbiosis in Development (SiD), which enables cross-disiplinary, integrated system-level innovation.
Tom has been committed to developing the foundations for a sustainable future from early on in his master studies Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. He continued investigating a systemic approach to sustainable development at the University of Western Australia and in his master studies architecture and planning at Yale University.
He discovered that the knowledge of a single, or even a couple of disciplines is not sufficient to truly engage the issues of sustainability head on, and started work on a theory and working-method for multi-disciplinary collaboration across sectors. He developed SiD, that now lies at the core of Except’s structure, approach and toolset, and which continues to be in development. SiD measures sustainability system wide, including system resilience, social justice, and self reliance.
As director and systemic designer, he has been the driver behind Except's bio-based architectural and urban designs, such as the Merredin Algae plant, Shanghai vertical agriculture tower systems and the urban redevelopment of Schiebroek-Zuid. In addition he has designed refugee housing for Katrina victims, developed innovative software solutions for knowledge management and worked on Polydome, the sustainable agriculture system. Tom was also the founder, together with Richard Boeser, of the Rotterdam Collective, a social workspace for socially engaged entrepreneurs in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Tom advises national and regional governements as well as multi-national corporations on sustainability strategy. He has worked in Australia, Canada, China, the Netherlands and the United States. He has taught in various schools and institutions and publishes articles and a variety of magazines and journals regularly. He lectures on congresses and events as a keynote speaker on sustainability, resilience and innovation practices.