![Twee mensen staan bij een muur van planten ](https://www.buas.nl/sites/default/files/styles/header_slider_default/public/2024-05/header%20sustainability.jpg?h=9ac69a24&itok=GzuFgeYd) # Sustainability Transitions **Professor**: Frans Melissen, PhD **Research topic**: Speeding up a societal sustainability transition through stimulating the emergence of a socioeconomic system that operates within planetary boundaries, promotes well-being and safeguards social justice [Contact ](mailto:melissen.f@buas.nl) This transversal professorship endeavours to support current and future professionals, companies and organisations in identifying, crafting and implementing their own sustainability transition pathways. Almost all professionals, companies and organisations realise and endorse that we need to move away from a society that has organised itself based on a socioeconomic system that exhausts our planet, focuses exclusively on economic growth and results in ever-growing inequality. Almost all of us support the idea of moving towards a system that operates within planetary boundaries, promotes well-being and does so based on the principle of social justice. Simultaneously, many professionals, companies and organisations, including those in the domains served by Breda University of Applied Sciences, struggle to find the best way to make a significant and meaningful contribution to this much-needed societal transition. Quite understandably, because sustainability transitions are complex, sometimes messy, and oftentimes confusing, especially because there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to your own contribution. The transversal professorship Sustainability Transitions therefore aims to empower and support individual professionals, companies and organisations in accounting for their personal and organisational circumstances, but also their preferences and worldviews, as well as those of their stakeholders, in shaping their own sustainability transition pathways. We do so by developing and sharing relevant insights, for instance related to sustainable organisation models, ownership structures, cooperation mechanisms, behavioural interventions, and more. However, we also purposely do so by exploring new ones, experimenting, sometimes failing, but always trying again. If you would like to join forces with us in finding ways to make a significant and meaningful contribution to shaping a better world, please contact us. The research team: - Frans Melissen - Rob van der Rijt - Lieke Sauer - Celiane Camargo-Borges - Anna Koens-Waddilove - Simone Moretti - Marina Brinkman - Veronica Bova [ ![](https://www.buas.nl/sites/default/files/styles/4_3_gemiddeld_wysiwyg/public/2019-04/Frans%20Melissen%20nieuw.jpg?itok=BuuoOa92) ]()### Frans Melissen, PhD **Professor** +31 (0)624739133 [![](https://www.buas.nl/sites/default/files/2021-04/linkedin-icon-sm.png)]() ## Featured Projects: Sustainability Transitions Tune in to our PodcastOur podcast is designed to inspire and equip professionals like you to take action and accelerate the transition to a sustainable future. **Tune in and be part of the movement shaping a better world!** [Check out our Podcasts ](https://sustainability-transitions.buas.nl/nl/overview/podcasts) ![Tekening van mensen in een grote stad](https://www.buas.nl/sites/default/files/styles/19_7_card_xl/public/2025-07/hospitable%20transitions.jpg?h=1c0a6824&itok=3zlR99fn) ### Hospitable Transitions The initiative focuses on accelerating sustainability transitions in the leisure, tourism and hospitality sectors across the Netherlands. [ Read more ](https://www.buas.nl/en/research/professorships/sustainability-transitions/hospitable-transitions) ![Een houten vakantiehuisje in een boom](https://www.buas.nl/sites/default/files/styles/19_7_card_xl/public/2023-12/Eco-Lodges%20and%20Biodiversity%20-%20creation%20of%20assessment%20tool%20-%20Nov2023.JPG?h=f6b7cfc2&itok=1BZHxgAw) ### Eco-lodges and biodiversity Creating a self-assessment tool for eco-lodge owners. [ Read more ](https://www.buas.nl/en/research/professorships/sustainability-transitions/eco-lodges-and-biodiversity) ![Een bos waarbij de zonnestralen door de bomen schijnen](https://www.buas.nl/sites/default/files/styles/19_7_card_xl/public/Wildlife%20economy%20cover%20picture%20on%20manual%201150x400.png?h=282addd5&itok=4z-_rzB9) ### Wildlife Economy Method and framework to support the development of Sustainable Business Models for a Wildlife Economy [ Read more ](https://www.buas.nl/en/research/professorships/sustainability-transitions/wildlife-economy) ![Iemand in een vakantiehuisje aan het water](https://www.buas.nl/sites/default/files/styles/19_7_card_xl/public/Tourism%20-%20life%20style%20travel%20-%20wellness%20-%20sustainability%20panorama%20size.jpg?h=2d8111f7&itok=R5mhanOe) ### Sustainable Experience Design Can destinations – as experience systems – be designed to contribute to sustainable development? [ Read more ](https://www.buas.nl/en/research/professorships/sustainability-transitions/sustainable-experience-design) ![Een kunstwerk in het gras](https://www.buas.nl/sites/default/files/styles/19_7_card_xl/public/2020-01/Header%20imagine%20process.jpeg?h=53fb90bf&itok=IyydXCmb) ### The image (re)construction process Image construction in work and non-work life domains. [ Read more ](https://www.buas.nl/en/research/professorships/sustainability-transitions/the-image-reconstruction-process)