News

Our SusTec colleagues Ricarda Fieber, Jenni Kaipainen, and Catharina Bening participated in and contributed to the first Phase II NCCR Catalysis Annual Meeting, held at ETH Zurich, and returned with new insights, ideas for future collaborations, and an award.

Together with Fraunhofer IZM researcher Theresa Aigner, our PhD candidate David Pfeffer presented ongoing research on the economic and environmental performance of producing high-quality plastic recyclates from e-waste.

Our PhD candidate David Pfeffer participated in the PhD Honors Program AMBassadors for sustaInable transition (AMBITION), an EU-funded project bringing together PhD students from Europe and Africa to learn about sustainable development from different disciplines and contexts and develop educational content for younger generations.

A new open-access study classifies European countries into three archetypes—battery, pumped hydro and hydrogen—for a cost-optimal, net-zero power system by 2050, and shows that higher-resolution grid models markedly increase long-duration hydrogen needs.

A new open-access article features a novel framework for scaling circular ecosystems through product design, co-authored by SusTec member Jenni Kaipainen and her colleagues Lucrezia Sgambaro and Davide Chiaroni from Politecnico di Milano.

Sophia joined the Sustainability in Business Lab (sus.lab) within the Group of Sustainability and Technology (SusTec) at ETH Zürich in May 2025 as a Senior Project Manager.

A new study published in iScience addresses an essential but often overlooked pillar of the Energy Trilemma: energy supply security.

Caterina joined the group in May 2025 as a PhD student at SusTec.

Beatrice joined the group in April 2025 as a senior researcher at SusTec. 

Rita joined the Sustainability in Business Lab (sus.lab) within the Group of Sustainability and Technology (SusTec) at ETH Zürich in April 2025 as an intern.

We are proud to announce that Catharina Bening has been awarded the title of Professor by ETH Zürich in recognition of her longstanding commitment and contributions to sustainability research.

The TAPIR framework evaluates climate and energy demonstration projects by integrating assessments at both the technology and project levels, enabling decision-makers to identify and scale the most promising solutions.

A new study highlights the barriers and how to overcome them regarding the value creation, delivery and capture of circular business models.

Our new study, published in “Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions,” examines how the EU policy landscape contributes to increased plastics recycling and use of recycled content in the electronics sector. We highlight three key barriers that hinder the mix from substantially driving the circular plastics transition.

A new review article uncovers the state-of-the-art and future avenues for research on experiments and demonstrations of sustainable energy technologies.

Mara joined the group in March 2025 as an intern at the Sustainability in Business Lab (sus.lab). 

Our new paper assesses the business case of small-scale electric vehicle-to-grid (V2G) aggregators in Switzerland.

Our new study, published in Research Policy, introduces the concept of "decline functions" for analyzing how technology innovation systems decline. It illustrates its usefulness by investigating the decline of four energy technologies: incandescent light bulbs, oil-based heating, nuclear power, and ICE cars.

Paula joined the group in February 2025 as a PhD student at SusTec.

Our new study, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, reveals how technical trade-offs and value chain configurations shape the deployment of mechanical, solvent-based, and chemical recycling technologies in the European automotive sector.

Our new study published in Nature Communications conducted the largest systematic assessment of carbon credit quality to date and found that less than 16% of studied carbon credits represent real emission reductions.

Our PhD candidate Ricarda attended INC-5 in Busan, Korea, where countries aimed to finalize a global plastics treaty. While UN member states failed to reach an agreement, unity amongst those member states favoring an ambitious framework offers hope for future negotiations.

The third and biggest Circular Building UnConference 2024 so far was a great success! On the 24^th of October, the third edition took place at the Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich and welcomed almost 200 participants to exchange innovative and collaborative approaches to make circularity a reality.

This paper examines how increasing recycled content in plastics, while addressing sustainability goals, can inadvertently amplify microplastic pollution due to material degradation during production, use, and recycling. By proposing a risk assessment framework and analyzing cases like textiles and wood–plastic composites, the study highlights critical areas for policy intervention and sets a research agenda to guide informed decision-making.

Tatjana joined the group in October 2024 as an intern at the Sustainability in Business Lab (sus.lab). 

SusTec Phd Candidates Alberto Arcà and David Pfeffer presented their research at the STEPS Towards Sustainable plastics conference in Lund 7-9th of September.  

Our senior researcher, Alejandro Nuñez-Jimenez, has secured an Ambizione fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Over the next four years, Alejandro will lead a team in developing a modelling framework capable of simulating policies for net-zero emission technologies from a new perspective.

Our PhD candidate Ricarda Fieber was nominated to participate in the Ad Hoc Intersessional Open-ended Expert Group Meeting for the Global Plastics Treaty Negotiations at the United Nations Conventions Centre in Bangkok, Thailand.

Hareesh joined the group in September 2024 as a project assistant at the Sustainability in Business Lab (sus.lab). 

Jenni joined the group in August 2024 as a senior researcher at SusTec. 

Senior Researcher Alejandro Nuñez Jimenez presented his latest work at a gathering of applied economists in Sicily and took part in an expert roundtable on climate change and rural development.

Emily joined the group in August 2024 as a project manager at the Sustainability in Business Lab (sus.lab). 

PhD candidate David Pfeffer joins a PhD honours program to promote sustainable development and research across Europe and Africa. The program includes summer schools and collaborative teaching projects aimed at high-school students.

We are proud to share that Alberto Arcà was selected to speak about his research at the Pint of Science festival.

Our PhD candidate Ricarda Fieber has joined the Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty and will attend the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee (INC-4) in Ottawa.

The launch of phase II of the NCCR (National Competence Center of Research) Catalysis was celebrated at the Paul-Klee-Zentrum in Bern. We are happy to join phase II to accelerate the efforts towards safe and sustainable chemistry in circular value chains.

New article by Lucas Miehé and his colleagues Maximilian Palmié, Johanna Mair, and Joakim Wincent. It explores how Tesla leveraged product design strategies and reputational politics to induce favorable customer evaluations of electric vehicles.

The Innosuisse Flagship SWIRCULAR (Circular Construction Digital Ecosystem) was officially kicked-off at the ETH Dozentenfoyer. Dr. Catharina Bening led discussions with the work package collaborators on value creation models for digital circular construction technologies.

James Kneebone joined the group in March 2024 as a PhD candidate focused on clean hydrogen and industrial policy. 

The second Circular Building UnConference 2023 was a great success! On the 26th of October, the second edition of the Circular Building UnConference took place at Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich and welcomed more than 130 people to exchange innovative and collaborative approaches to transform the building industry towards circularity.

SWIRCULAR, a five-year Flagship supported by Innosuisse, focuses on accelerating the use and interlinkage of digitalization and circular economy in the Swiss construction sector. SusTec will co-lead a work package together with the Berner Fachhochschule.

SusTec’s flagship award-winning lecture on Corporate Sustainability is now more accessible than ever thanks to the first teaching case study published by the group’s team on the Case Center.

SusTec's Senior Researcher Dr. Christof Knoeri addressed the topic of real estate decarbonization and Scope 3 emissions during his presentation at the NZZ Real Estate Days Masterclass held in Davos.

SusTec had the priviledge of organizing this year's ETH Week on Circular Realities with PB Labs. 

Integrated energy system planning at the district level can contribute towards the sustainable transformation of the building sector by unlocking solutions beyond individual buildings. The new paper by Alicia Lerbinger, Evan Petkov, George Mavromatidis and Christof Knoeri investigates optimal decarbonization pathways for existing districts, considering investments in both, energy systems and retrofits.

The new paper by Paula Thimet and Georgios Mavromatidis introduces the MANGOelec optimization model and investigates the optimal mix of energy storage technologies to decarbonize the German electricity system.

Niklas joined the group in August and will focus on corporate transitions towards net zero.

This August a group of SusTec members presented their research at the International Sustainability Conference in Utrecht.

Barbara will support SusTec's "Corporate Sustainability" course from August 2023 onwards