Sustainable Systems Engineering (STEN)
The Research Group Sustainable Systems Engineering (STEN) aims at designing and evaluating systems in a sustainability context, relying on engineering principles.
Products, processes, supply chains, and production and consumption patterns are studied with:
- a focus on resources, i.e. resource footprint and resource efficiency
- a lifecycle thinking approach, e.g. operationalized through MFA and LCA
- thermodynamic principles, relying on the second law: exergy and exergetic life cycle analysis
The research is in close collaboration with national and international universities, research centers, policy makers and industry in areas of the following nature: chemical, pharma, primary raw materials, waste-as-a-resource, agro-bio-food …
Projects are funded by the EU (such as Horizon 2020, KIC EIT), Belgian/Flemish funding schemes (such as VLAIO, FWO, spearhead clusters), Ghent University and international collaboration programs.
As an example of our research, the project on sustainable food packaging was explained by Dr. Ir. Lieselot Boone in this video (Dutch).
