Department of Industrial Ecology (CML-IE)

Research

Industrial Ecology

Our department 's research aims to support the ecological transformation of society and environment towards sustainability. The research subject is Industrial Ecology in its broadest definition, covering environmental systems analysis, and incorporating the social and economic aspects required for sustainability analysis. System analysis involves the development and application of concepts, methods and models.

Research projects concern global and regional ecological and socio-economic relations at a macro level, for environmental strategy development, and, at a meso and micro level, for support of sustainable decision making on policies and technologies regarding production and consumption.

The focus of our analysises are often conceptually relatively simple models. They are based on one or a few central mechanisms, as related to substance flows (MFA, material flow accounting), product flows (LCA, life cycle assessment), and monetary flows (IOA, input-output analysis). The system analysis of energy flows and market relations also is within our research domain, as  well as ecological relations and evolutionary mechanisms.

Normative aspects of decision making are taken into account explicitly. Application of the models to real decision making situations is essential for model development and for proving their applicability.