Ran Liu

Special Expertise

Main areas of research:

• Sustainable consumption, products, services and companies
• Life cycle assessments and carbon footprints for the evaluation and optimisation of products, processes and technologies

Topics:

• Technical and ecological assessment of products and processes with a focus on ICT (information and communication technology)

Methods:

• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) & material flow analysis
• Product Carbon Footprint (PCF)
• Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF)

Key Projects

• Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Menstrual Products
• Impacts of the digital transformation on the environment and sustainability
• Impacts of the digital transformation on the environment and sustainability, issue paper under Task 3 from the “Service contract on future EU environment policy”
• Data collection on the environmental impact of cloud computing (eco-cloud computing) on the basis of a life-cycle approach 
• Key data and indicators for the assessment of the efficiency of resource use in data centres and for testing the practical feasibility
• Ecological and economical aspects in a comparison of desktop computers intended to be used by public authorities, under consideration of the user behaviour
• Establishing a data base for the evaluation of ecological and economic effects of ICT products
• Accounting for a company's information and communication technologies or devices and services using the PEF method
• SMART 2012/0064 – Study on the practical application of the new framework methodology for measuring the environmental impact of ICT – cost-benefit analysis
• SMART 2011/0073 – Towards an overall measurement methodology of the carbon and energy footprints of the ICT sector
• Technical support for the revision of the European Ecolabel criteria: Televisions
• Life cycle assessment of concrete ceilings
• Blue Angel: Development of procurement principles for the product groups mobile phones, disposable nappies and room air conditioners
• Certification of low-carbon product groups in China and Germany, in cooperation with China Environmental United Certification Center (CEC)
• Savings potentials through a newly developed washing machine with automatic dosing system
• Timely replacement of a notebook under consideration of environmental aspects – life-cycle analysis using the data basis of the EuP preparatory study, ProBas, and Ecoinvent
• Study on rare earths and their recycling
• Product carbon footprint analysis of five different selected fish products (GTZ)
• Product carbon footprint of green coffee – case study “Tchibo Privat Kaffee Rarity Machare”
• Critical review of carbon footprint of drinking milk, bread and potatoes by Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) Austria
• Technical support for the product category rule (PCR) development for green coffee

Professional Training and Career

• Since 2007: Researcher at Öko-Institut, Sustainable Products & Material Flows Division 
• 2006-2007: Researcher at Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegation (Fraunhofer IZM), Environmental Engineering in cooperation with Technische Universität (TU) Berlin
• 2005-2006: Internship and diploma thesis at Siemens AG, Berlin
• 2005: Student Assistant at Green Delta GmbH, Berlin
• 2004-2005: Student Assistant at Institute of Environmental Technology at TU Berlin
• 2001-2006: Diploma studies in Environmental Engineering, Technische Universität (TU) Berlin; degree: Dipl.-Ing. (Diploma Engineer)

Language Skills

Chinese (mother tongue), German, English