Stefano Cucurachi is an Associate Professor of Industrial Ecology.

More information about Stefano Cucurachi

News

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  20 July 2023 Leiden industrial ecologist and Italian pharma company receive an EU grant to realise sustainable drug production
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  31 January 2022 Four science professors receive Senior Teaching Qualification certificate
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  21 June 2021 How a Dutch man collecting 400,000 pieces of litter ended up on a scientific paper
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  26 January 2021 Making a technology sustainable that doesn’t even exist yet
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  08 October 2019 The art of being a teacher
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  21 February 2019 Online Experience 2.0 Urban Studies - City Biodiversity
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  01 February 2019 SUNRISE: from sunlight to smart city
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  08 January 2019 Cucurachi, Behrens and Matthee are teacher, discoverer, and PhD candidate of 2018
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  20 September 2018 Saving the environment by banning plastic bags?

PhD Candidates

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  Suiting Ding PhD candidate / guest
• 
  Jana Enking PhD candidate / Guest
• 
  Nethmi Sewwandi Kankanamge Dona PhD candidate
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  Stewart McDowall PhD candidate
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  Adrien Perello-y-bestard PhD candidate
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  Carlos Siguenza Sanchez Guest PhD candidate
• 
  Kristie Tjokro PhD candidate

Former PhD candidates

• 
  Carlos F. Blanco Rocha

Professional experience and research Interests

Stefano's research focuses on Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD)—a transformative framework that integrates safety and sustainability considerations at the earliest stages of R&D. By embedding prospective sustainability assessment methodologies, he enables technology developers and innovators to identify and mitigate potential hazards upfront, preventing unforeseen negative consequences at scale.

With a background in industrial engineering, he shifted his focus from supply chain optimization to the assessment of socio-technical systems' sustainability. Stefano obtained his PhD from Leiden University’s Faculty of Science in 2014 and pursued postdoctoral research at ETH Zurich and the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara. For over a decade, he has contributed to the methodological advancement of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), from inventory and impact assessment methods to uncertainty and sensitivity analyses. Since returning to CML in 2017, his research has centered on prospective LCA, evaluating emerging technologies at the earliest stages of development to guide them toward more sustainable pathways.

Currently, he is PI in several European projects applying SSbD methodologies to a variety of industries, with a focus on the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. He is spearheading the development of a computational pipeline to streamline SSbD assessments and expand the evaluation of substances of concern. He is broadening his research beyond active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) to assess their impact across the entire healthcare chain, from drug manufacturing to medical application and waste disposal. His work integrates LCA, Hazard Assessment (HA), and Risk Assessment (RA)—a methodological frontier that requires new analytical frameworks, robust uncertainty characterization, and innovative data structures for rapid evaluation.

As the director of Education of CML, Stefano strives to innovate sustainability education and train the next generation of experts to tackle global challenges.

His primary research areas include:

• Prospective sustainability assessment of emerging technologies, materials, and systems
• Rapid environmental impact assessment of pharmaceutical and chemical substances
• SSbD methodologies for APIs and beyond
• Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses in sustainability models
• LCA of foundational innovation infrastructures (e.g., cleanrooms, novel solar cell designs, circular business models, novel food technologies)

Through his work, he aims to bridge the gap between scientific research, industrial application, and policy development, ensuring that sustainability and safety are fundamental pillars of innovation.

Publications