University of Stuttgart
Stuttgart University (USTUTT) sees its mission in furthering a stronger positioned interdisciplinary research in its specific areas of focus. USTUTT provides industries and authorities as well as communities with professional research and development services. USTUTT supports international students and their collaboration with international companies by providing international study programs. The Department of Life Cycle Engineering (LCE), in the Chair of Building Physics (LBP) is one of the world’s leading groups in its field and provides national and international industries, agencies and authorities, professional and science based consulting services for implementing the LCE approach. USTUTT contributes with exceptional technical and engineering experience as well as scientific Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) background to the project team. USTUTT has a long record in polymer science and has accredited testing laboratories. The activities in the department of LCA started in 1989. The research engineers of USTUTT have over 120 person-years of outstanding experience in LCA project work captured in software (GaBi4) and databases (Eco-profiles). GaBi4 enables the assessment of the three elementary aspects of sustainability: environmental, economic and social aspects. Together with a spin-off company PE Europe, USTUTT constitutes the world's largest LCE working group. They have an active role in SETAC (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry) working groups, are represented in SETAC’s LCA Scientific Steering Committee, and in the international UNEP Life Cycle Initiative for fostering LCA capability, harmonisation and database-access worldwide. In addition, the team develops and applies the methods in co-operations with industrial clients as well as governmental institutions on national and international level. These projects include almost all major European automobile manufacturers, the largest chemical, plastic and metal manufacturers, and various other companies from the electronics and the construction industries.
USTUTT enables the integrated decision support of the project considering sustainability. A development study with pre-analysis and consequential simulations enables the pre-estimation of the sustainability of the technical processes. In BASE, an integrated consideration of all life cycle aspects of the chosen materials can be done. Thus the consortium will be informed about the effect of the novel product in advance and will be able to optimise technical processes in the development phase. The GaBi4 software with its various functions enables the optimisation and weak-point analysis considering environmental impact.