A look at Connekt's international course

Nico Anten has been working at Connekt for 25 years. He can therefore tell you a lot about the organization. At the moment, his work within Connekt focuses mainly on Lean & Green International and EDIC. He tells us more about these initiatives.

Nico Anten has been working at Connekt for 25 years. He can therefore tell you a lot about the organization. At the moment, his work within Connekt focuses mainly on Lean & Green International and EDIC. He tells us more about these initiatives.

No one has been employed at Connekt as long as Nico Anten. Just like the organization, he is celebrating his 25th anniversary this year. Nico uses the three words connect, trust, and result to describe Connekt. He explains that in its early days, Connekt was a very different kind of organization than it is today. “In the first phase, Connekt had only one goal, namely to implement a program.” At that time, there was no place in the world of mobility and logistics where people could meet. Connekt did meet that need, but with a temporary starting point.

When the question arose at the end of 2003 whether Connekt should stop or continue, Nico proposed turning it into a network organization. He was allowed to carry out this proposal with a small team. After the restart, all income had suddenly vanished. The then Director-General of Infrastructure & Water Management and the Director-General of Economic Affairs did believe in Connekt's story. They wanted to provide a temporary subsidy as a helping hand. “It soon became clear that we no longer needed the subsidy, but we were still entitled to it,” Nico says. During a major Connekt event, one of the DGs was a speaker. Nico: “He said: ‘As a ministry, we are satisfied with Connekt; we also helped with a subsidy. Recently, Nico reported that the subsidy was no longer necessary. Since then, we have taken Connekt seriously.’ There were many parties in the room who were all receiving subsidies. That was a bit awkward.”

As a network organization, Connekt met a need and the number of members began to rise. In 2007, the ministry asked if Connekt would like to implement programs for them, now that it had built up such a good network. “We started with that, as a kind of test.” The mutual cooperation was successful, leading to Connekt being assigned more programs. “To this day, we continue to implement them with great pleasure. This has led to the current combined model of the membership and implementation organization.”

Lean & Green
Lean & Green emerged from the first program Connekt started working on in 2007. In 2011, the program went international for the first time. “We started introducing Lean & Green in more and more countries.” Currently, about ten countries are participating, a pilot is running in Canada, and a pilot is being set up in Chile.

Nowadays, unlike in the early days of Lean & Green, sustainability has become very normal for many companies. In fact, it is already built into many of their operations. But companies still want to become even more sustainable. They also face new challenges. Due to various events, such as the blockage of the Suez Canal by the container ship Ever Given, companies have noticed how vulnerable supply chains are. “Companies want to gain much more control over the resilience of supply chains. An important way to do that is through digitalization. This gives you faster and better insight into how your supply chain functions.”

Lean & Green now wants to link the demonstrable recognition for results achieved through sustainability efforts to the need for digitalization and the fact that Europe is requesting more reporting (CSRD). “This is to prevent a company from having to participate in three or four different programs.”

A European legal entity is also being established with partner countries, so that Lean & Green becomes a fully European program. “That will also strengthen the program's right to exist and give confidence to companies. Previously, Connekt handled the international part of Lean & Green on the side; there was no funding and there were capacity issues. That is now being addressed. Connekt remains responsible for Lean & Green Netherlands.”

Federated data system
Because mobility and logistics are larger than the Netherlands, including for the members, Connekt is now also seriously developing its international side further. “Previously we only did that with Lean & Green, but we now want to set that up much more broadly and seriously.” An example of this is Connekt's contribution to BoostEDIC.

Nico explains that Europe is committed to a digital strategy focused on digital sovereignty. This means that you yourself, whether you are a citizen or a company, remain the owner of your data. This is different from the model in America, where a few companies own a lot of data, and also different from the model in China, where the government owns a lot of data. Through smart agreements, you decide who is allowed to see your data or at what time. For companies, a major added value could be that, whereas a lot of data is currently exchanged between parties who know each other, they can make the step to start exchanging data with parties they do not know. But because of the way data sharing is set up, they can still trust these parties. In technical terms, this is called a federated data system.

A number of things must be arranged for this. Europe does not facilitate this itself but has outsourced the implementation to the member states. To help the member states, an instrument has been formed: the European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC). This EDIC helps member states collaborate to further digitalization, especially its implementation. EDIC exists in various sectors. The lead for forming the EDIC for mobility and logistics is the Netherlands, and Connekt is helping the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management with the process.

“At Connekt, we know a lot about why companies ultimately implement or change things. We have a lot of national experience, within Lean & Green, but also through the Modal Shift program, for example. Through the proposed BoostEDIC project, we want to contribute to discovering how companies will actually start using that beautiful European vision.”

Traveling with Connekt
Although Connekt now wants to develop its international side further, Nico has already gained a lot of experience abroad with Connekt. “I have regularly been a delegation leader on trade missions. That has taken me to extraordinary places in the world. For example, I have been to North Korea (albeit no more than 10 meters into the negotiation barracks on the DMZ) and was able to visit the Great Wall of China through Connekt. I’ve been in a helicopter. I have really been able to enjoy those trips.” Nico tells an anecdote about a working visit by the royal couple to Bavaria in 2016, which he also attended. “I was invited to lunch with the royal couple. Immediately after lunch, we had a Lean & Green stand somewhere in Nuremberg, which Queen Máxima was to visit first. In the presence of the royal couple, you have to deal with a lot of protocol, and it is unthinkable that you would leave earlier than the royal couple. So the royal couple leaves the lunch and we had to get to that congress and ensure we were there before the Queen. The royal couple took a detour to the congress. I was pushed into a van and we drove to the congress center under police escort. We ran inside through a back entrance. When I was ready at the stand, the Queen arrived a minute later. Apparently, everyone thought it was perfectly normal that I left later and was already there earlier. A wonderful experience to be part of such a well-thought-out and prepared logistical process.”

Future
“In my eyes, the future is challenging and, if Connekt handles it well, also rewarding. I think the need will remain for an organization that organizes a good network and actually manages to bring the content to implementation.” But according to Nico, that is anything but a foregone conclusion. “You have to work for that every day. In 2004, Connekt started renewing itself, doing new things and letting go of others. At Connekt, that is a continuous process to this day, and if you continue to organize that well, you will continue to have added value. Then, now, and in the future.”

Would you like to know more about Connekt's 25th anniversary?

Then visit our special theme page 25 years of Connekt!