To start our busy day, we drove to a tulip farm where we learned about the process of growing tulips and the importance of them for many Dutch farmers. While some farms grow tulips to sell the flowers, the farm we visited and most of them throughout the country prioritize growing the tulip bulbs underneath the surface of the soil. This means that the flowers must be cut off while they are blooming in order to preserve enough energy for the plant to grow large bulbs. The larger the tulip bulb produced, the more profitable it is for the farmer. Tulip growing is a year long process that has experienced many innovations over the past few centuries such as robots to detect infected or sick tulips in order to preserve the healthy flowers. Since a few of us visited the tulip museum in Amsterdam the day before this trip, we had prior knowledge about the entire process of growing and exporting tulip bulbs. It was fascinating to see the tulip fields in person and witness the beauty of different species of tulips growing together.

After this, we ate our lunch at the beach and headed towards our next stop of the floating homes. While here, we had the opportunity to tour these homes and meet some of the residents living in them like young adults and their adorable cats. Many of the residents designed their homes to have plants on the walls and roof in order to create a more eco-friendly environment and to collect rainwater in a more useful way. Originally, the residents wanted to collect rainwater and use it as their water for flushing toilets but insurance companies would not allow this. The entire neighborhood of the floating houses is built on the idea of putting any dream you have into practice. The only limitation to what you can do comes from what the insurance companies allow in the end.

Our last stop of the day was to a company called Edge, a sustainable building firm that has erected skyscrapers across the entire city of Amsterdam along with the rest of Europe and even in the US. We discussed their practices for sustainable building as they prioritize not only sustainability for the environment in terms of low CO2 emissions and using only accessible resources but also in terms of human welfare. When building, they take into account natural lighting and greenery in order to make employees feel comfortable within their office and enjoy going to work which is very different from in the US.

Something interesting we learned while visiting the floating homes is that in the Netherlands, you can become a mediator for issues between neighbors. This is almost like a small claims lawyer yet more personal and is for any potential disagreements within the community. This is different from in the US and is there for helping the community from within rather than relying on going to a legal system and making small disputes or issues more serious than they need to be.

In terms of sustainability, it was very interesting to see how the Edge company focuses so much on net-zero emissions within their build process and ensuring the most clean way of building their skyscrapers and projects yet partners with AI users. For example, they mentioned one of their partners who rents out the spaces within their offices uses AI to ensure the most sustainable and optimal way of renting to different companies and when they would use the resources within the building. However, this seems counterintuitive as AI is very harmful for the environment and they are not helping the environment with their sustainable build practices if they are trying to offset the damage they’ve done through AI usage instead.