Quantitative Sustainability Assessment

We quantify environmental and social impacts in the realm of technological life cycles.

In the Quantitative Sustainability Assessment Section we quantify the environmental and social dimensions of sustainability. To do this we are creating an improved set of methodologies to assess the sustainability of complex systems. We translate those assessments into concrete decision support tools that can be used by managers, product developers and decision makers in all types of public and private organizations.

Our methods originate from the life cycle area, where the section is leading in a paradigm shift, where sustainability is considered in an absolute and not a relative sense. We apply the latest knowledge about the planet's endurance limits and complex systems, to assess the effects of products, sectors and even nations on the best possible evidence-based basis.

Our work is, to a large extent, based on the methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and its related and constituent fields, Life Cycle Management and Life Cycle Impact Assessment. We are pioneers in developing Site Dependent Impact Assessments and Absolute Sustainability Assessments and we lead the global consensus model of toxicity estimation (USEtox). Moreover, we advise the European Union Commission on their use of relevant assessment methodologies. 

The section enjoys international recognition and has an extensive network within the field of quantitative environmental life cycle assessment of industrial products and systems. We have an international faculty of academics and an extensive track record in absolute sustainability assessment and life cycle impact assessment, in particular within human toxicity, ecotoxicity and climate change.