RISKCYCLE

Participant details

Universiteit Leiden (CML) Institute of Environmental Sciences, Department of Industrial Ecology (CML-IE)

CML, the Institute of Environmental Sciences is an interfaculty institute within Leiden University. Research at the Industrial Ecology Department of CML (CML-IE) addresses environmental problems in the industrialised world, in their socio-economic and political context. There are two other departments at CML, Environmental Biology, which focuses at sustainability of agricultural and horticultural practice, including pesticide use, and the Department of Environment and Development, focussing on co-use of nature in developing countries. CML has a positive gender policy.

The goal of research at CML-IE first is to acquire knowledge about ecological transformations in order to understand how changes in production, consumption, and waste management processes may contribute to sustainability, and secondly to support sustainability oriented decision making by public bodies and private persons and organisations. Research at CML-IE covers areas of societal interest, such as energy and climate change, chemicals, heavy metals, and agriculture, but mainly focuses at Industrial Ecology method and tool development. Two key areas of research are substance and material flow analysis (SFA/MFA) and life cycle assessment of products (LCA), both developed in combination with policy instruments for chain management. Research in industrial ecology now covers environmental systems analysis, with a focus on different types of economy-environment modelling involving also environmentally extended Input-Output Analysis (IOA) and related economic models and tools like LCC (Life Cycle Costing) and CBA (Cost- Benefit Analysis).

Lead: Dr. Ester van der Voet