Environmental research at LiU

With an interdisciplinary and problem-based approach, environment and sustainability researchers at LiU deal with questions from the highest level, international climate negotiations, to how the residents of a local neighbourhood can be encouraged to save energy. Five research environments have the environment and sustainability as its main focus.

1. Water and Environmental Studies (WES) is working towards a fundamental understanding of the complex interactions that characterize the water and environmental issues. Institutions and politicians have a growing need to understand society's management of natural resources, pollution and waste products. The research is conducted within and across three interdisciplinary areas of focus:

1. Pollution - causes, consequences, politics and actions
2. Livelihoods, lifestyles and sustainable supplies of food, water and energy
3. Climate change - impacts, politics, strategies and actions (in collaboration with CSPR, see below).

Researchers at WES have, for example, calculated greenhouse gas emissions from lakes and streams globally and found that it is much higher than previously assumed. Other examples of research are the streamlining of the biogas process, green future, food security, the Baltic Sea eutrophication and toxic pollutants.

2. Department of Thematic Studies - Technology and Social Change conducts research into how people create and use technology and how technological change is interwoven with cultural patterns, everyday life, politics and economics. One such research area is Energy, technology and society, which covers the problematization of environmental policy. Another subject of study is the levels of energy consumption in different levels of society.

3. Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research (CSPR) puts climate change in context with other measures of sustainable development, such as reduced environmental impact and economization of natural resources. The aim is to develop knowledge, framework and methods for climate research in Sweden and internationally. The research projects includes contributions to the international negotiations on how growing forests, which absorb carbon dioxide, shall be figured into the equation when countries' emissions are calculated.

4. The Division for Environmental Technology and Management is studying how environmental perspectives affect products, services, technical systems and organizations. The focus is on the interactions between them. Within the research area of industrial ecology, we examine economic and organizational conditions for industries to cooperate in clusters, where what is waste in one process becomes a valuable commodity in another. Such strategies will contribute to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to economize scarce resources.

5. The Division of Energy Systems analyses national, regional and municipal energy systems as well as industrial, and buildings as energy systems. The researchers have revealed the great potential to save energy in the industry.

Research on environment and sustainable development is also conducted within various areas of research at LiU, such as in logistics (logistics and the environment).

Research

• Water and Environmental Studies
• Department of Thematic Studies - Technology and Social Change
• Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research
• Environmental Technology and Management
• Energy Systems Programme

• Water and Environmental Studies
• Department of Thematic Studies - Energy, Technology and Society
• Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research
• Environmental Technology and Management
• Energy Systems Programme