Postdoctoral Fellow: Reducing Environmental Impacts through Zero-Emission Neighbourhoods

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The Industrial Ecology Program (IndEcol ), Department of Energy and Process Engineering (EPT) at NTNU is seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow or Researcher to advance the assessment, modeling and planning of zero-emission neighborhoods, including the development and evaluation of strategies to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions through strategies such as energy and material efficiency, sustainable lifestyles, and energy self-generation.

Net-zero emission buildings are now commonly designed, but their development has given rise to the recognition that residents in such buildings cause greenhouse gas emissions and other impacts in several ways. This includes affecting the ability of the surrounding neighbourhood to achieve emission reductions. Looking at a larger scale provides additional opportunities to optimize the system and reduce emissions. NTNU, SINTEF, and a several corporate and public partners collaborate in a research centre on zero-emission neighbourhoods (FME ZEN ). To ascertain the emissions at the neighbourhood scale, a set of modelling tools based on life-cycle assessment and product cohort analysis have been developed.
Resource efficiency has been recognized by the European Union and the United Nations Environment Assembly as an important mechanism to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs). Land, water, energy, biomass, and minerals comprise resources which are to be used more efficiently. The International Resource Panel has found that there are important potential synergies between reducing material footprints (the indicator for SDG 12.1) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Its Resource Efficiency and Climate Change report (RECC) has influenced policy in several world regions and is cited in three legislative proposals by the European Commission, including the Green Deal and the Renovation Wave .

ZEN has systematically worked with a set of assessment tools to ascertain the net-zero-emissions status of neighbourhoods and developed neighbourhood-scale life cycle assessment. In addition, there has been substantial effort in the collection and definition of an inventory database. The RECC modeling framework focuses on the functional performance and dynamics of product stocks over time and combines life-cycle assessment, engineering models, and material flow analysis in a similar manner as the ZEN modelling tools.
The Postdoctoral Fellow or Researcher would take a leading role in the further development and application of the current suite of models and assessment approaches to zero-emission neighbourhoods with the aim to develop a tool that can be widely used in the analysis of greenhouse gas mitigation opportunities in new and existing settlements. The work will be done under the guidance of Professors Edgar Hertwich and Helge Brattebø. The work would build on previous work in ZEN and the RECC modelling framework. 
The Head of Department is Professor Terese Løvås. The position’s supervisor is Professor Edgar Hertwich and Helge Brattebø the co-supervisor. 
Trondheim is the place of duty.