I’m very grateful to everyone who contributed along the way through collaboration, feedback, and constructive debate. Looking forward to what comes next.
nexus.openlca.org/database/HIL...
That makes LCSA more practical, more transparent, and more usable for decision support in real-world sustainability transitions. Maybe as a digital sustainability product passport for European Commission?
15 after Jeroen Guinée helped inspire the field with his 2011 "Life Cycle Assessment: Past, Present, and Future", HILCSA is the first robust and mature integrated LCSA method available. It goes beyond separate assessments of environmental, social, and economic aspects and brings them together.
This makes HILCSA especially relevant for researchers, policymakers, industry, and civil society who need a way to compare products and technologies. For the field of #LCA and LCSA, this is an important step.
HILCSA supports up to around 80 detailed indicators, which are aggregated into easy-to-understand indices and figures, and is implemented in openLCA with data sources such as soca and #ecoinvent.
It enables the assessment of processes, products, organizations, and regions as integrated systems, including material and energy flows, working time, sustainability trade-offs, synergies, and hotspots.
#HILCSA — the Holistic and Integrated Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment developed by my team and me — is now the first publicly available #LCSA impact assessment method.
HILCSA integrates ecological, economic, and social dimensions in one harmonized framework.
After years of continuous development, numerous case studies, many conference presentations, fruitful discussions, and teaching it to many students, I’m very pleased to share a major milestone:
Our new paper on holistic sustainability of community supported agriculture is available! It is really impressing what community supported production and consumption systems can contribute to sustainability already today.
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
Grateful for the opportunity to have recently joined the Center for Emancipatory Technology Studies (CET) — a collective of scholars exploring how technology can serve society rather than dominate it. buff.ly/N3DKAsd
In late-stage capitalism, many “new” technologies don’t change the system — they tend to sustain existing patterns of production and consumption, rather than transform them.
Compared to petrol cars, blend-fuelled ICEVs and BEVs show reduced aggregated environmental impacts (−6 % and −2 %). Yet, both come with burden shifts toward the social and economic dimensions: total impacts rise by 8 % for the blend-fuelled ICEV and by 30 % for the BEV.
Our new paper applying the HILCSA method to passenger cars highlights an important point: alternative drivetrains are not automatically more sustainable.
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
We are hiring! For my working group ISAS, I'm looking for a new colleague to join us on data engineering for sustainability assessment, monitoring, and alternative economic accounting systems. Requirements: Python, databases, systems sciences, LCA, GIS, and IO; Offer: 75%, 1.5 years
Paludiculture offers a promising land-use pathway to cut GHG, restore biodiversity, and support sustainable development. Using the HILCSA method, socio-ecological interactions could be better understood. However, reliable primary I/O data is still too scarce to conduct LCAs.
Thrilled to have joined the 1st Int. Conference on Absolute Sustainability – “From Less Bad to Good Enough” at DTU! In my talk and this article, I explored some systemic implications that Absolute Sustainability Assessments have but are often neglected: systemic transformations.
"Economic Planning in the Anthropocene" 24-26 september,
UNIGE
Program : => shorturl.at/fuFbA
@dehes.bsky.social @danielagabor.bsky.social @ceciliarikap.bsky.social @louisoncf.bsky.social @jksteinberger.bsky.social @rosiecollington.bsky.social @cornelban.bsky.social @edouardmorena.bsky.social
- Contribute to ongoing debates on post-growth economies, democratic planning, and absolute sustainability.
buff.ly/lPMUMHl
I’m looking forward to the exciting work ahead and to continuing the exchange with critical minds across disciplines.
regional sustainability assessments, low TRL assessments, stakeholder participation, and science communication.
- Operate in a collaborative, inter- and transdisciplinary setting, engaging with universities, research institutions, municipalities, companies, policy actors, and civil society.
methods and models (HILCSA, CDEP, RESPONSA) as tools to evaluate the sustainability of production and consumption systems as societal metabolisms in their technical and societal dimensions.
- Provide expertise in bioeconomy system analysis, strategy development, social-ecological transformations,
environmental and social perspective that a bioeconomy and circular economy are key components of a social-ecological transformation, while emphasizing that they are not inherently sustainable and require critical assessment.
- Develop and apply extended Life Cycle Assessment and Input/Output
colleagues, mentors, and partners who have shaped this journey so far.
Together with my growing team, we’ll focus on one of the most pressing questions of our time: How can we achieve a good life for all while staying within planetary boundaries?
As a research group, we:
- Support the view from an
After 10 inspiring years at the UFZ as a research assistant , PhD and postdoc, I’m happy to share that I am now leading my own research group ISAS (Integrated Sustainability Assessment of Societal Systems and Bioeconomy). This new chapter is both an honor and a challenge. I’m grateful to my
Übrigens: Frank #Gotthardt von #Nius ist zwar ein besonders dramatischer Fall von nach rechts treibender Wirtschaft in Deutschland - er ist jedoch #KeinEinzelfall.
Einen Überblick zum Rechtsruck in Teilen der Wirtschaft hierzulande gibt's hier. (von mir)
👇👇👇
www.surplusmagazin.de/antifaschist...
🌿 We're hiring!
UFZ Leipzig is looking for a Scientist (f/m/x) to support digitization & sustainability of plant-based value chains.
🔍 Data science, LCA, geospatial tools
🧠 Interdisciplinary research
📍 Leipzig | ⏳ 18 mo. | 💼 65%
🗓 Apply by July 6: buff.ly/38jbbIX
#research #sustainability #LCA
❗Neues vom Blog #Postwachstum
🐌 #Degrowth Forschung
Wissenschaftliche Landkarte www.postwachstum.de/degrowth-for...
Kritik & Herausforderungen www.postwachstum.de/degrowth-for...
📈Kybernetische Demokratische Wirtschaftsplanung @waltherzeug.bsky.social @ufz.de www.postwachstum.de/kybernetisch...
🔗 If you're interested in systems thinking, sustainability metrics, or future-fit planning models, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Full paper available here:
buff.ly/smmf7nv
#Sustainability #SystemsThinking #Cybernetics #EconomicPlanning #PlanetaryBoundaries #SocialNeeds #AbsoluteSustainability
🌍 In a time of accelerating ecological overshoot and inequality, we need bold, systems-level approaches. This work brings together ideas from cybernetics, democratic planning, and sustainability science to explore how we might govern economies in service of both people and planet.
🚀 Just had the honor of presenting at the openLCA Conference 2025!
🎤 My talk, “Exploring New Frontiers in Absolute Sustainability: Cybernetic Democratic Economic Planning”, introduced a novel framework to monitor and plan the satisfaction of societal needs within planetary and regional boundaries.
The recording is now online:
youtu.be/I4_8_lDfwEw?...