Industrial Ecology Approaches for Better Decarbonization of the Transport Sector
Professor Kendall is one of world's leading experts in Industrial Ecology and Life Cycle Assessment. Her work has significantly advanced the environmental evidence basis for sustainable technology transitions, including EVs, energy storage, low-carbon materials, and sustainable agriculture. Her seminar is a must for anyone interested in sustainable systems analysis methods and their applications to environmental problem solving.
—Eric Masanet, Professor, Bren School
Watch a recording of this talk here
ABSTRACT
Life cycle assessment and the broader field of industrial ecology has long sought to understand the flows of resources and waste through our human-made systems and technologies, often with some intention of anticipating and avoiding unintended consequences. This perspective is particularly relevant to decarbonization strategies, where we have great urgency to change the technologies and operations of our energy and transport systems to meet climate targets, but which require a life cycle perspective to understand their true capacity to reduce emissions and to understand their other environmental, social or governance issues. In this talk I will discuss the use of life cycle assessment and material flow analysis for improving the transition to a decarbonized future with particular focus on electric vehicles as a key, but not complete, solution for decarbonization in the passenger transport sector.
BIO
Alissa Kendall is a Professor at University of California Davis in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Chair of the Energy Graduate Group. Her research applies and advances the methods and perspectives of Industrial Ecology to understand and reduce the environmental effects of transport, civil infrastructure, energy, and agricultural systems. Much of her current work focuses on the environmental implications, mineral resource intensity and global equity implications for the electric vehicle transition. She holds a multi-disciplinary Ph.D. from University of Michigan in Natural Resource Policy and Civil & Environmental Engineering.