Sustainable industrial systems
We provide science-based evidence to help identify sustainable solutions on a life cycle basis, taking into account economic, environmental and social aspects.
Internationally-leading group in life cycle sustainability assessment.
Experience collaborating with >100 industrial, commercial, regulatory and research organisations.
Developers of CCaLC, the free carbon footprinting tool.
More than 300 publications.
Driving sustainable change
Our research identifies sustainable solutions across the full life cycle of industrial systems, from chemicals and energy to food and water.
Working with industry, government and NGOs, we combine life cycle assessment, economic analysis and social evaluation to drive real-world change. Our tools and frameworks support producers and policymakers in making decisions towards sustainable development.
Our goal is to help researchers, companies and policy-makers identify and implement genuinely sustainable systems – ones that are economically viable, environmentally responsible and socially beneficial across the whole value chain.
Adisa Azapagic - Group Lead and Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering
Research
Our areas of research
Circular economy
Our circular economy research maximises resource efficiency by moving beyond the linear “take-make-use-dispose” model. We help companies implement circular principles in everyday business, using our BECE decision-support framework, for example, which combines eco-design with backcasting to provide a step-by-step guide for organisations.
Life cycle sustainability assessment
All our research is underpinned by life cycle thinking – we consider sustainability “from cradle to grave”, from raw material extraction through production and use to end-of-life management. Applying these ideas across multiple sectors of the economy, we use life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing, social LCA, and multi-criteria decision analysis to identify sustainability hotspots and the most sustainable options. CCaLC, our free carbon footprinting tool, has thousands of users in more than 70 countries.
Sustainable production and consumption
We define sustainable production and consumption as producing and using goods and services in a way that is economically viable, environmentally benign and socially beneficial over their whole life cycle. Our research examines the interactions between technologies, consumption patterns and policy to identify more sustainable solutions for producers and consumers.
Connect with us
Our people
- Adisa Azapagic - Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering
- Rosa Cuellar Franca - Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Chemical Engineering
- Laurence Stamford - Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Chemical Engineering
- Aaron Brown
- Nicolas E. Labra Cataldo
- Javier Gomez Cardozo
- Piya Gosalvitr
Get in touch
Contact our team
For research collaborations, please contact:
adisa.azapagic@manchester.ac.uk, rosa.cuellarfranca@manchester.ac.uk, or laurence.stamford@manchester.ac.uk
Research activities
Discover more about our group's latest research activities: