Who we are

Joost, one of our enthusiastic founders. He would rather stand on two skis than on one board. You can wake him up at night for some classic Dutch ‘stamppot’ (stew), or for lunch, too. With a small dose of humor from under the rivers, he tries to achieve the ambition he and Philip always wanted to start a company for: creating impact by doing. Pushing the transition towards a sustainable economy.

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Joost’s mission is to change the world in such a way that Greta Thunberg can go to bed with peace of mind by at least 2030!

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Imme is our Senior Sustainability Expert and enthusiast about timber-construction and biobased-construction. She has a broad background in sustainability and specialized in the sustainable built environment since her master's thesis. Besides in a professional way, Imme also likes to engage in construction activities as a hobby; she enjoys building walls and repairing roofs, as long as she can work with her hands.

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Sustainability is a big motivation for her, to make sure that her beloved ArenA does not end up below sea level.

Philip, the other founder. Together with Joost he started this journey, guiding organistions towards real and effective sustainability. Creating impact by acting: that's the aim. Nature is beloved by him, he likes enjoying it while hiking, kite-surfing or snowboarding.

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Philip's love for the animal the hedgehog started while growing up close to the Dutch forests. When facing dangers, hedgehogs curl up and protect themselves against the threat ahead. When confronted with climate change, humans are doing the same. Philip wants to change this by offering a perspective.

Zoë is a born sustainability queen. With her background in bio-based innovation, she’s mostly analysing the life cycles of products and materials in this field. Zoë loves far travels and good food, of course flying on bio-based fuels…

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Her ambition? To be a driving and supportive force in adopting bio-based materials replacing non-renewable materials.

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Saro, life cycle specialist, both boxing- and chess enthusiast (not at the same time) and a big fan of the Italian kitchen. His sustainability journey began at his bachelor years ago together with Joost and Philip. After a few years of LCA experience, he is ready to support companies in their transition towards sustainability. He knows best the added value of sustainable performance.

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His mission is ensuring sustainability becomes the norm. In this way, he hopes he doesn’t have to explain to his aunt every time during family birthdays that sustainability is more than solar panels on the roof.

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Rik is a fanatic basketball and office-pingpong player. Unfortunately, winning from his colleagues is still a dream. In his free-time, he likes reading books on his e-reader. Having a positive attitude and an analytical performance, he supports solving sustainability issues in a wide range of sectors. He likes to dig deep into the different components and materials of different products.

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Rik’s mission is localizing as many environmental hotspots in company’s supply chains. This makes our  goal-driven support in improving environmental performance of our customers almost easy.

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Clara is our Head of Communication. Clara is a real sustainability enthusiast, with a love for vintage clothes, second hand shops and innovative ideas. Clara is curious and has broad and diverse interests; she loves reading, listening to podcasts (she also hosts our very own podcast), art-house movies, yoga, hanging out with friends and going to the beach.

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Her ambition is being friendly to our planet and minimising the impact we have with our behavior; so we -and all other living creatures- can live happily ever after. Say yes to that!

Gloria has two distinct personalities that harmoniously co-exist within her: a child-like joyful and -at times-chaotic Italian in her personal life, who turns during working hours into an ambitious and detail-oriented professional. Her entrepreneurial spirit allows her to see the bigger picture and make valuable connections. She brings the sustainability conversation to any table, where she does not shy away from getting down to the nitty gritty details of impact assessment measurements.

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Fun fact: she is obsessed with sea turtles and Disney movies, and has both eternalized in a tattoo. As an ocean lover, she dreams of a world where the future of sea turtles and other ocean creatures is not compromised, and she won't rest until that is the case.

Ricardo, our nitrogen sensei, loves to either shred waves or golf courses. On Saturday evenings, you will most probably find him in one of his favorite Jazz cafés in the city centre of Amsterdam. By having an out-of-the-box attitude and a holistic approach, he tackles sustainability challenges head on, thriving on teamwork. During the week, he dedicates himself mainly to calculating nitrogen emissions and conserving nature reserves.

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Although the idea of surfing to work appeals to Ricardo, he rather would keep surfing at the beach, and devote himself to keeping Amsterdam above sea level for the coming centuries.

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Mees, Junior Sustainable Construction Expert, is a sports-man. He likes soccer (both playing & supporting) and is currently training for his first half-marathon. With joining our team, he can now also sharpen his ping-pong skills in our Hedgehog-after-lunch-ping-pong-competition. Besides this, Mees has a lot of creative talents; he enjoys making (animated)videos, drawing and illustrating.

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Sustainability is an important topic to him. He wishes to see a nature-inclusive future for us all, where we humans take care of our planet instead of just consuming and eroding our environment.

Max writes articles, is podcast-host and is doing research for our Hedgehog Knowledge Base. He is interested in almost everything, but if he had to pick just one thing, he would be -the whole day long-eating good food. The combination of food and sustainability makes him obsessed with the origin of our food products. No surprise that he knows all episodes of his favorite television program “De Keuringsdienst van Waarde” by heart! He also likes to go outside with his binoculars around his neck, and see if he can find some rare birds hiding in nature.

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His mission is to help educate people about the importance of taking care of the planet, because 'when you don’t know, you can’t act!'

François is our Sustainability Manager; he manages our projects & processes. Very motivated with a lot of interests and passions, he loves to cook for the people he cares for and to do all kinds of sports (running, fitness and handstands). Also, he is learning how to play the piano. In general, he loves learning; an example of this are his excellent Dutch skills!

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François feels good about contributing with his job to our world in a meaningful way and having an impact in fighting climate change. This aligns well with his conscious and vegan lifestyle.

Luc is our creative multi talent. He creates cohesion in our design and communication. He is the creator of this website, our Hedgehog Carbon Platform and has done the rebranding of Hedgehog Company. Like most artists, Luc prefers working in the middle of the night. 

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Luc believes that everything can be sustainable and should be. With his own company, he helps ethical businesses with sustainable branding and web design.

Victor prefers to spend his days off on his boat on the Amsterdam canals. His entrepreneurial spirit has already developed a brilliant concept. This allows him and his fellow boat owners in Amsterdam to continue sailing carefree in the future, as soon as this has to be done on batteries. In addition, he remains a driving force in our team.

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His mission: The Netherlands (almost) emission-free by 2030, so Victor knows for sure that he can continue to enjoy the Amsterdam canals in the distant future without having to use a submarine!

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Marijn, Junior Sustainability Expert, has a background in Moleculair Neurosciences; she loves numbers. She has a long list of things she enjoys doing in her free-time: taking pictures, making her own clothes, walking in the rain, bouldering, reading, cooking or doing tastings (wine/beer/coffee/whiskey). She also sometimes volunteers in an initiative for refugees.

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What drives her for sustainability is climate-justice. It feels unfair that the climate-crisis hits the countries the hardest, who didn't contribute much to our planet being in this crisis. Let's use our chances to shift this dis-balance!

Conor is our LCA-intern, from the master Bio-Inspired Innovation (Universiteit Utrecht). He is doing a comparative research between fungal based bricks and Dutch clay bricks, to translate their impacts into biodiversity loss indicators. Conor felt inspired to do this study during after his travels to South-America, where he encountered a spectrum of nature and the many wonderful species that exist there. Conor loves mountain biking and growing mushrooms; he is enthusiastic about the potential mushrooms can offer to human health.

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He came to the Netherlands (from Ireland) to learn more about sustainability and especially material use there and impact, where bio materials can be a great alternative to traditional ways.

As a die-hard Arsenal fan, Nata is either really happy or really sad on Mondays. Nata's hunger for knowledge and her curiosity never sleep. Her passion for pubquizes and philosophical discussions make this rather clear. In her free time she likes to sing (sometimes also at work), teach English and cook.

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Nata's mission is to help companies getting insight into their impact on the climate. Sustainability can be quite daunting at first, but Nata can make it understandable and interesting for clients.

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Joël, Sustainability Expert with a long-time drive to move society to exist more sustainably. Joël likes to explore his city Amsterdam: on sunny days you can see him paddling around the canals on his SUP. Or admiring the beauty of the city from behind his camera-lens. He also really enjoys visiting exhibitions, the theater, cinema etc.

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Ever since he was a child, he had the ambition to make the world a more sustainable place. At Hedgehog Company Joël is happy to help organisations take their steps towards sustainability and prevent us from continuing to damage our planet by sticking to the business-as-usual approach.

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Casper is one of our NOx Experts and aspiring web developer: he is currently taking a coding course. With this, he will help develop our Hedgehog Carbon Platform. Casper likes sports, he has a lot of plants at home, he loves nature, walks and likes to read; both science fiction and more philosophical books.

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He really likes the problem-solving part of his work; he likes puzzles and that ties in nicely with coding.

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