Andreas Froemelt recently defended his dissertation and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Ecological Systems Design (Prof. Stefanie Hellweg) at ETH Zurich. The goal of his dissertation was to investigate and develop new approaches that would be able to provide a thorough information base to support the design, prioritization and implementation of effective environmental policies. In his research, he is especially interested in understanding prevailing consumption patterns and in quantifying the environmental impacts induced by individual household behavior. Thereby, he has a special focus on the exploitation of Big Data and the application of data mining and machine learning techniques to extract new information tailored to the respective policymakers’ areas of influence. Focusing particularly on household consumption, he elaborated a spatially resolved bottom-up model which is able to derive a realistic environmental profile for each household in a certain region. He also demonstrated the practical feasibility of this model by applying it to the current situation of Switzerland. His further research will focus on identifying drivers of consumption-induced environmental impacts, understanding regional distinctions as well as setting up and analyzing future scenarios.
This is part of the Sustainable Urban System Member Spotlight series. Read more here.
