09 OCT 2026 (FRI) 10:00-11:30
Geography Distinguished Seminar Series
Industrial Ecology for global sustainability and resilience analysis
Date: 09 OCT 2026 (Friday)
Time: 10:00-11:30 (HKT)
Venue: TBC
Mode: Hybrid
Via Zoom: Zoom link will be provided upon successful registration
Registration link: TBC
Abstract:
The world faces a polycrisis. Climate change is not going away. Demand for resources will double by 2060. The well-being outcomes of our economic system are not optimal. And last but not least, the globalised economy is falling apart. Economic interdependencies are being weaponized, i.e. used as geo-economic weapon.
Policy tends to look at economic specialist to find answers on such urgent problems. This lecture will argue that Industrial Ecology is one of the best science fields to find them. Tools such as Material Flow Analysis (MFA), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and Environmental Input Output analysis (EE IOA) are pivotal to understand the physical structure of global production-consumption networks. The lecture will given an introduction to MFA, LCA and EE IOA and illustrate the application of such methods for assessing e.g. the transition to e-mobility, a low carbon built environment, and critical material use in electrolyzers.
Professor Arnold Tukker
Professor of Industrial Ecology and Distinguished Professor of sustainability research, Leiden University, Netherlands
Arnold Tukker is the Professor of Industrial Ecology and Distinguished Professor of sustainability research at Leiden University, Netherlands. He served until September 2022 for a maximum 8 year term as Scientific director of Leiden’s Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML, growing it from 40 to 170 staff, globally leading in Life cycle assessment, Material flow analysis and Environmental Input-Output analysis (IOA)). He retains a small position at the Dutch not for profit research organization TNO. He was awarded visiting positions at Nanjing University, China, Universitas Padjadjaran, Indonesia, the Paris Institute of Advanced Study and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received an honorary doctorate of Linkoping University, Sweden, is member of the European Academy of Sciences since 2018, and a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher since 2019. He is currently president of the International Society of Industrial Ecology.
