Sustainable Technology Design

The Department of Sustainable Technology Design was founded in 2023 and is part of both the Institute of Thermal Energy Technology and the Kassel Institute for Sustainability at the University of Kassel. 

Our research activities focus the sustainable transformation of the industrial system and the energy transition. 

The Department focuses on the transformation challenges in a sustainability hot spot, the energy- and resource-intensive materials industry. This industry transforms natural resources (raw materials) into basic materials and is thus both an absolute focus of energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions (about 40% worldwide and rising) and a strategic player in global resource flows.

Based on the techno-economic characteristics of the industry, our research includes the development, quantitative modelling and analysis of transformation scenarios and strategies as well as the investigation of corresponding (policy) instruments.

The methodological core of the department's research is a system-analytic approach, which models and analyses the industry in its transformation towards a climate-neutral and resource-efficient economy on the one hand techno-economically and quantitatively in the context of the energy system, and on the other hand holistically as a socio-technical system in its social and institutional contexts.

Our research is explicitly transdisciplinary and solution-oriented due to its application orientation and intensive cooperation with actors from industry, politics and society.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Lechtenböhmer