Romain Sacchi

Researcher building open-source tools for future-oriented sustainability assessment

Villigen, Aargau, Switzerland

About

I develop methods and open-source software to make Life Cycle Assessment more useful for decisions about future technologies and transition pathways. My work focuses on prospective LCA, regionalised LCIA, temporal LCA, and the coupling of life-cycle inventories with energy, climate and integrated assessment scenarios. In practice, this means building tools that allow researchers and practitioners to assess technologies not only as they exist today, but as they may operate in future energy and industrial systems. I am the developer or co-developer of several Python tools used in the LCA community, including premise for generating prospective life-cycle databases, carculator for vehicle life-cycle assessment, and edges for flexible, regionalised and scenario-sensitive LCIA. I also teach Python-based LCA workflows with Brightway and contribute to research on mobility, energy systems, industrial decarbonisation, wind energy, data centres, and emerging technologies. I am especially interested in transparent, reproducible and computationally efficient sustainability assessment methods that bridge scientific modelling and practical decision support. I also teach LCA practitioners how to use Python, Brightway, scenario data and regionalised impact assessment in a more reproducible way.

Experience

  • Paul Scherrer Institut PSI (7 yrs 1 mo)
    • Scientist
      Jul 2023 - Present · 3 yrs

      Researcher in the Technology Assessment group at PSI, working on prospective life-cycle assessment, regionalized impact assessment, and sustainability modelling of future energy, mobility and industrial systems. Main contributions include: – Development of premise, a framework to generate prospective LCA databases from integrated assessment model scenarios. – Development of carculator, an open-source vehicle LCA model and web tool. – Development of edges, a Python library for contextual, regionalised, and scenario-sensitive LCIA. – Application of prospective LCA to mobility, energy systems, hydrogen, synthetic fuels, cement, wind energy, and industrial decarbonisation. – Teaching and training on Brightway, Python-based LCA workflows, prospective LCA and regionalized LCIA.

    • Postdoctoral Researcher
      Jun 2019 - Jul 2023 · 4 yrs 2 mos

      Environmental impact assessment of future mobility technologies

  • Aalborg Portland A/S (4 yrs 3 mos)
    • Sustainability specialist
      Mar 2018 - May 2019 · 1 yr 3 mos

    • Industrial PHD Student
      Mar 2015 - Feb 2018 · 3 yrs

      Modeling the environmental impacts and potentials of cement production, a major building material in sustainable housing.

  • Partner at GetWasted ApS
    Sep 2014 - Mar 2018 · 3 yrs 7 mos

    GetWasted is a freshly launched environmentally-minded design company. High-end production waste into design furniture.

  • R&D and Sustainability Manager at SUNBY ApS
    Feb 2012 - Aug 2014 · 2 yrs 7 mos

    Researching and developing inter-industrial synergies to come up with energy-efficient outperforming materials made from high-value industrial unused waste and/or end-of-life unused resources, for the industry in need for lowering their environmental footprint. Work as a Life Cycle Analyst, in parallel.

  • Sustainability Project Manager at Barsmark A/S
    Jul 2012 - Feb 2013 · 8 mos

    I apply my environmental, materials and logistics engineering knowledge to implement context-specific reverse supply chains to reintroduce production surpluses/end-of-life waste back in the industrial loop. I equally apply myself on developing the environmental product documentation of our activities through Industrial Ecology's tools of Life Cycle Assessment and Input-Output analysis.