Title awarding university: Leibniz University Hannover

Title of the doctoral project: Development of a Standardized Life Cycle Assessment Methodology for Higher Education Institutions

Short description of the doctoral project: The doctoral project aims to develop a standardised methodology for the life cycle assessment (LCA) of higher education institutions (HEIs). HEIs contribute significantly to sustainable development through teaching, research and innovation. At the same time, they cause considerable environmental impacts through their infrastructure, mobility, energy consumption and teaching and research activities. So far, there has been a lack of suitable LCA methodologies that are tailored to the specific framework conditions and structural diversity of universities. Different sizes, organisational forms, locations and teaching formats make it difficult to apply existing approaches and lead to challenges in terms of data availability, quality and comparability.

The doctoral project will first analyse which requirements an LCA methodology must fulfill in order to be suitable for universities. Based on a comprehensive literature review, existing approaches will be systematically analysed and existing research gaps identified. Based on this, a methodology will be developed that takes into account the specific characteristics of universities and enables a well-founded environmental assessment. The methodology developed will be applied to the mechanical engineering campus of Leibniz University Hannover as an example and then critically analysed with regard to its applicability and informative value.

The aim is to use a standardised methodology to make the environmental impact of universities systematically recordable and comparable. In the future, the methodology is to be supplemented by social and economic aspects in order to enable a holistic sustainability assessment. The findings from the work should support universities in developing data-based measures to reduce their environmental impact and further strengthen their role as pioneers for sustainable development.