dr. Niko Roorda

Niko Roorda PhD works as a senior consultanton sustainable development (SD) and corporate social responsibility (CSR), for companies and universities in and outside of the Netherlands. He coaches board members with the development of the company vision and strategy, and managers with the design of the implementation policy, and he trains and coaches employees and teachers with the design of their projects, curricula and other tasks.

Roorda received his PhD title at Maastricht University in October 2010, based upon twenty years of experience on the integration of sustainable development in organisations and education.

Roorda wrote seven books on sustainable development and CSR. The second, revised Dutch edition (2011) of his 'Basisboek Duurzame Ontwikkeling' ('Basic book on SD') will be followed by an English edition (January 2012) published by Earthscan, London. It is used as a textbook by many Dutch and Belgian universities, and for staff development in companies, governments and universities. Roorda initiated, coordinated and partly wrote a course on sustainable entrepreneurship, for staff members of commercial companies (Euroforum, 2007). For the main public he wrote a book called 'Ons huis, Planeet Aarde' ('Our home, Planet Earth', Tirion, 2008). His PhD dissertation (2010) is entitled ‘Sailing on the Winds of Change. The Odyssey to Sustainability of the Universities of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands’.

Before receiving his PhD in social sciences, Roorda graduated in physicsand philosophy of science at Utrecht University (MSc, 1981). His expertise in management sciencesis based on several studies and expertise in the last twenty years. He worked as a teacher in secondary and higher education. From 1991, together with others he developed a new university study program on 'Sustainable Technology', of which he was the manager for five years.

He designed and managed Project Cirrus (1998-2002), which worked on the integration of sustainable development in the study programs of the Faculty of Science and Technologyof Avans University. For this project, in 2001 he received the “Columbus' Egg”, the Dutch National Award for Innovation and Sustainable Development, from the hands of the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Environment.

At present he works as a senior consultant for DHO ('Duurzaam Hoger Onderwijs'), the Dutch Foundation for the Advancement of Sustainable Development in Higher Education. He developed the AISHE system, a method to assess the rate of integration of sustainable development in higher education institutions, which has been applied in universities in nine countries, e.g. Brazil and Bangladesh. The Certificate of Sustainability in Higher Education, based on the AISHE system, is acknowledged by the NVAO, the Dutch accreditation organization for higher education. Together with other tools Roorda developed, he coaches organizations from modest first steps towards System Integration of Sustainable Development (‘SISD’), a concept he defined and operationalized in his dissertation.

His primary task for DHO consists of consultancy and coaching of sustainability related organizational and educational development projects in companies and universities, and the training and certification of AISHE assessors.

Roorda published dozens of papersin scientific and popular magazines, and contributed to a number of books on SD and CSR. He is a reviewer of the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education and for the Journal of Education for Sustainable Development.

Niko Roorda is a regular speaker at international conferences, in universities, commercial companies and government institutions. He also acts as a workshop & debate leader.