Long read about WUR's Material Flow Management programme for sustainable business operations.

How WUR is using data to make its business operations more sustainable

Eighteen percent. That’s how much of Wageningen University & Research’s residual waste consists of paper towels that are used and discarded daily in dozens of toilet rooms. It sounds like a mere detail, but insights like this, made possible by the Material Flow Management (MFM) data model, are changing how WUR views sustainability. Thanks to data, big ambitions are being translated into concrete choices and circular opportunities. In this background article, you can read more about the MFM program and the data model developed for it. The estimated reading time is approximately six minutes. 

‘We are slowly but surely piecing the jigsaw together,’ says Thijs van Rossum, Head of Safety and Environment and Manager of Sustainable Management at WUR. He is referring to a university that has been working successfully on sustainability for many years. Still, he is actually only now really starting to see the impact of all that effort. 

It all began with a simple observation. WUR had big ambitions,  becoming climate-neutral, achieving circularity in its operations, and protecting biodiversity, but it didn’t have the full picture. ‘We reported mainly on our gas and electricity consumption,’ explains Erna Maters, the staff member responsible for the sustainability policy. ‘But what about all those materials we buy in? We knew very little about them, even though they represent the lion’s share of our CO₂  impact.’

From sales receipt to environmental impact

That blind spot has now been expertly eliminated. Since 2022, WUR has been working with engineering firm Witteveen+Bos and waste management company PreZero on a data model that maps literally everything that enters and leaves the campus. Every purchase within WUR is made using ProQme, the digital procurement system. A researcher orders test tubes, a lecturer requests new whiteboard markers, and employees buy lunches for meetings. All of these items generate receipts with prices on them. But how many kilos of materials do all those purchases represent? How much CO₂ is released during production? Is the plastic recycled or not? Those questions remained unanswered for a long time. That’s until now, says Rob Dijcker, Project Manager at Witteveen+Bos. ‘We translate all that procurement data into material flows. Each purchase is linked to a database of reference products. That way, we can convert euros into kilos, and kilos into environmental impact.’
The result is staggeringly detailed. Anne van Casteren, Contract Manager for the partnership, sums this up: ‘We now know the impact of our lab materials, animal feed, chemicals, computers, furniture and so on.’ Laboratories, for example, require tens of thousands of different products a year. ‘We don’t have an exact reference for every product yet, by the way,’ Dijcker acknowledges. ‘There is some uncertainty involved. But every year we determine where that uncertainty is greatest, and we then take a closer look at that. So, it really is a growth model.’

What goes out counts just as much

The other half of the story of the MFM data model plays out at the waste containers. Here, PreZero in turn, records everything that leaves the organisation: plastic, industrial waste, specific hospital waste, paper and organic waste. ‘That happens at the container level,’ clarifies Dijcker. ‘We can therefore see for each building, even for each department, what is collected there.’
What is crucial is what happens next. Is the waste incinerated? Recycled? Or are materials given a second life? ‘We want to move up the R ladder,’ explains Maters. ‘Refuse, reduce, reuse, those are the rungs we aim to reach. Recycling is better than incinerating, but reusing is even better.’
Combining both data streams, everything that enters WUR and everything that leaves WUR, creates a complete picture. From raw material extraction to end-of-life: everything is tracked.

The surprising power of transparency

The model does more than just measure. It also makes choices visible. Van Rossum: ‘In an academic environment, there is a huge need to understand what we do and what choices we make. A good data model helps with this. But it also reinforces the importance of doing all this on solid foundations.’
That transparency goes both ways. At first, the MFM team mainly used the model itself to identify potential improvements. Now, more and more people within WUR are getting their own dashboard. Site managers are seeing how their building is performing, while lab heads are seeing what share of the total impact comes from their own lab. ‘That is completely changing the conversation,’ says Dijcker. ‘We would be pushing people at first: we’re seeing something in the model, could you start doing this? Now I’m seeing the reverse happening. People are coming to us with sustainability ideas and questions: can you show me what the impact would be?’
That shift, from top-down to bottom-up, is essential, according to Van Rossum. ‘The four of us can’t figure out what WUR should do. That really has to come from the bottom up. If a small team of people decide to travel to the campus by bike every Tuesday and Wednesday instead of by car, you wouldn’t see that reflected in the data right now, but you will soon. And that would be great too, because then everyone’s own personal effort would become visible.’

From paper towels to turbines: concrete change

Back to those 18 percent paper towels. After a thorough analysis of 11 different life-cycle analyses in one of the field labs, the team recommended switching to electric hand dryers. ‘That doesn’t sound spectacular,’ says Van Casteren. ‘But it does involve a major investment and a substantial reduction in both procurement and waste.’ The directors of operations gave the go-ahead. Following a successful pilot, a call for tenders for the entire campus will now be put out. 

Another field lab is focusing on lab materials. ‘That is a very large procurement category,’ says Van Casteren. ‘We are encouraging reuse from teaching labs to research labs, and we are motivating labs to keep central stocks instead of buying everything themselves.’ The result? ‘You see cross-pollination between units and labs happening more often. They are sharing much more with each other. I really like that too, that collaboration.’
But, to be honest, not every field lab leads to implementation. The team also explore solutions that do not ultimately get realised. Sometimes this is because the business case doesn’t pan out, and sometimes it is because there are other priorities. Maters: ‘This shows that while we may be able to work out the pay-off of a given opportunity quickly, the reality is sometimes complex.’

More than just material: the CO₂-link

This whole MFM data model forms the basis for something even bigger: a complete CO₂- dashboard. Van Rossum explains the history: ‘We have been making CO2 footprints since 2011, but that was mainly about scopes 1 and 2, about our direct gas and electricity consumption. Scope 3, all the indirect emissions from what we buy, was much trickier.’ The breakthrough came from connecting the two worlds. ‘Witteveen+Bos had already built that MFM data model. It contained all the materials. Then we said: let’s link the CO₂ calculation to it so we have one overall picture.’
Dijcker emphasises the relevance: ‘Scope 3, that’s everything that is bought in, accounts for the lion’s share of the university’s climate impact. That is why this focus on circularity and material flow is so important. That’s where the biggest lever is.’
The result is now an integrated footprint in which everything counts: buildings, mobility, procurement and waste. ‘We presented it for the first time six months ago in our annual report,’ says Van Rossum. 'We now use the same methodology for material flow as well as CO₂. That makes it much more robust.’ 
Van Rossum describes the model as being like a ‘young adult, an adolescent’. The data is reliable, the verification processes are solid, but there is still room for development. ‘Being robust does not mean that everything is done and dusted. For example, we are looking at expansion to include the biodiversity impact. The dashboard is also becoming more and more interactive, allowing more people to do their own analyses. And every year, the conversion factors are being refined, where new knowledge becomes available.’

From data to culture change

The biggest gain may not be in the numbers themselves, but in what they are triggering. Van Casteren: ‘You can see that based on MFM, the organisation is increasingly engaged. That collaboration between departments, that sharing of materials, that awareness, that is perhaps just as valuable as the reduction figures.’

Dijcker sums this up: ‘First, you have to complete your picture and understand what each department's impact is. We’ve done that. Now we can show each part of the organisation what its share of the total impact is, and what scope there is for it to take action. Measures and results must now come from this. So, the model is not an end in itself, but a tool for understanding all incoming and outgoing material flows, for ultimately identifying and exploiting circular opportunities.’

Three big goals, one tool

WUR’s ambitions are broad: to become climate-neutral according to the Paris agreements, to achieve full circularity in operations by 2050 and to combat biodiversity loss. The MFM data model and the CO2 dashboard are tools that serve all three goals. This is ambitious, and the team are also aware of the challenges. But the direction is clear. Van Casteren therefore concludes optimistically: ‘We are proud of what we have. The data model is ready, the policy is in place, and we have field labs producing great results. Now is the time to really start harvesting.’
And sometimes that harvesting starts with something relatively small, with paper towels in a toilet room. But it ends with fundamental questions about how a university relates to the world around it. The difference is that WUR can now back up the answers to those questions with data. WUR is aware that it has created something special here. ‘There are very few organisations in the Netherlands that have this at this level of detail,’ says Dijcker. ‘Having a procurement system that is translated into materials, environmental impact and waste streams in such detail: we do this work a lot, but I don’t know of any organisation in the Netherlands that has a system like this.’

The MFM data model was developed in collaboration with Witteveen+Bos and PreZero within a 10-year partnership that started in 2022. For the MFM model, research by WUR was taken as the starting point. The model was then continuously improved with new insights from field labs and practical projects. The CO2 model is based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and international databases for emission factors.

Wageningen, April 2026

Questions?

Do you want to know more about the Material Flow Management programme? Get in touch with our programme manager Anne van Casteren.