Liset Meddens
Liset Meddens
After finishing my studies in 2011, I became the UN youth representative on sustainable
development. Traveling across the world to UN climate conferences to caused me to find out that the solutions we urgently need were not coming from this global stage.
When the opportunity came to bring the global Fossil Free movement to the Netherlands in 2013, I took this chance together with Urgenda.
We started a people-powered movement to break the power of the fossil fuel industry and fight for climate justice. In 2016, I founded Fossielvrij NL, the organisation that supports this movement.
We started by calling on universities to cut their ties with the fossil fuel industry, because this undermines their social license to operate and creates political space to speed up the energy transition.
Because universities in the Netherlands do not have direct investments in fossil companies, we focussed on the pension fund linked to these uni’s: ABP. By collaborating with different groups and organizing many teachers, civil servants and other pension participants, we managed to win our campaign and get one of the largest pension funds in the world to divest from fossil fuels.
Currently, Fossielvrij NL has grown as an organisation and we have ambitious targets: we are campaigning the most fossil bank of the Netherlands: ING. We are taking KLM to court to fight their greenwashing and we are starting a new movement against LNG – liquefied natural gas. With our #StopGate campaign we aim to prevent a new LNG-plant expansion in the harbour of Rotterdam.
This all started with my bachelor in ‘Environmental-Society Sciences’, that I followed at Utrecht University (the predecessor to Global Sustainability Science). After this I moved to Wageningen to study International Development Studies.
During my time in Utrecht, the year I have learned the most, was during my year as a
Board member of Storm. As commissioner ALEX I’ve organised many parties, events and
introduction weekends for new students. Storm has been such an incredible contribution to my life so far, my best friends at the moment are still the friends I made during my Storm-years.
This is why I was really enthusiastic when I was asked for the Committee of Recommendation of my favorite study association! Therefore, I decided to join without hesitation, so that I can help Storm(ers) create an even richer generation of students focused on climate action next to studying the environment and sustainability, to change the future together! It is an honour to me to be part of the Committee of Recommendation.
