The chemicals and materials industry (CMI) is a major economic driver across the world and its products are essential for our well-being. However, this industry is responsible for 30% of direct greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to ecological degradation due to products such as plastics, artificial fertilizers, and novel chemical entities.
Today, many corporations, universities and nations have pledged to achieve net-zero emissions within a few decades. For sustainability, these pledges must be met in an economically feasible manner without exceeding ecological limits and with wide social acceptance. In addition, the transition needs to be resilient, enable ecosystem restoration and address societal inequities. This is a formidable task that requires systematic methods, models and tools.
This talk will describe a framework for guiding the transition of the CMI and individual products to a sustainable circular economy. This includes a public-domain model of the global CMI, approach for understanding the trade-offs between economic and environmental goals, methods to guide innovation and associated experimental work and molecular simulation, and long-term planning of roadmaps to achieve environmental goals while accounting for changes in the climate, energy sources, and policies. We will also identify approaches and challenges for ensuring that this transition is nature- and people-positive and resilient. Case studies based on the global chemical industry and circular economy of plastics will convey the practical value of our work. Many challenges remain for future work across all domains of research and education
Biography
Bhavik Bakshi holds the Wrigley Professorship at Arizona State University with appointments in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, School of Sustainability and School of Complex Adaptive Systems. He directs the Center for Transitioning to a Net-Zero Chemicals and Materials Industry at ASU and is also the Richard M. Morrow professor emeritus in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The Ohio State University. His research is developing systematic methods to ensure that engineering enables an effective transformation toward sustainability. This is resulting in novel designs of products, processes, supply chains, life cycles, and landscapes that contribute to economic prosperity, respect nature’s limits, and are socially just. In addition to many papers and invited talks, his contributions include a textbook on sustainable engineering, user-friendly software, and short courses taught across the world. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and has received the highest recognitions from its Computing, Sustainability, and Environmental divisions. The American Council for Life Cycle Assessment has recognized him for his Education Leadership and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded its early career award. He is on the editorial boards of several multidisciplinary journals and has served on government committees such as task forces of the United Nations Environment Program. He received his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, MS in Chemical Engineering Practice and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a minor in Technology and Environmental Policy.