Franco Donati
Franco Donati

Assistant Professor of Industrial Ecology

About Me

I am an assistant professor at Leiden University, CML investigating topics concerning data and software for circular economy assessment. I am especially enthusiastic about questions related to investigative approaches of data collection in industrial ecology using computer vision and citizen science. I try to answer questions such as:

  • How can we reverse engineer the life cycle impacts of products?
  • How can we expand data availability for Life Cycle Assessment without the need to ask every manufacturer for their data?
  • How can we best enable the assessment of future impacts of the circular economy?
Interests
  • Circular Economy
  • Reverse Engineering
  • Environmental Input-Output Analysis
  • Life Cycle Inventories
  • Scenario analysis
  • Citizen science
  • Computer Vision
  • Computer-Aided Technologies
Education
  • PhD Industrial Ecology

    Leiden University, Institute of Environmental Sciences CML

  • MSc Industrial Ecology

    Leiden University, Institute of Environmental Sciences CML

  • BSc Industrial Design

    Polytechnic of Turin, Faculty of Architecture

📚 My Research

My research focuses on the expansion of data availability on the environmental impacts of products and technologies, and on the development of tools and methods for circular economy scenarios analysis.

I pursue these research areas by employing software and data development methods, and the use of reverse engineering for data collection practices.

Specifically, I investigate data collection and generation methods for Life Cycle Inventory and Environmentally Extended Input Output databases, and software tools and methods for macro-economic sustainability scenario analysis.

Please reach out to collaborate 😃

Featured Publications
Publications
(2023). Data implementation matters. Journal of Industrial Ecology.
(2022). The future of artificial intelligence in the context of industrial ecology. Journal of Industrial Ecology.
(2021). Learning from circular economy relevant modelling approaches. TNO.
(2021). Modeling the circular economy in environmentally extended input--output: A web application. Journal of Industrial Ecology.
(2020). Efficient computation of environmentally extended input--output scenario and circular economy modeling. Journal of Industrial Ecology.
(2020). Modeling the circular economy in environmentally extended input-output tables: Methods, software and case study. Resources, Conservation and Recycling.
(2020). The circularity gap of nations: A multiregional analysis of waste generation, recovery, and stock depletion in 2011 (vol 151, 104452, 2019). RESOURCES CONSERVATION AND RECYCLING.
(2019). The circularity gap of nations: A multiregional analysis of waste generation, recovery, and stock depletion in 2011. Resources, Conservation and Recycling.
(2018). Assessing circularity interventions: a review of EEIOA-based studies. Journal of Economic Structures.
Recent & Upcoming Talks