Wouter Achten

Background

About Wouter Achten

Wouter is a Bioscience engineer (Land and Forest Management) by formation. After graduating he spent one year as a volunteer in an agricultural project in Tanzania, where he was confronted with land conversions to biofuel crops. This triggered him to investigate on the sustainability of biofuels, for which he was able to secure a personal PhD scholarship. During this PhD he focused on life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental performance of biofuels, but also worked on methodological advances and plant specific issues. During the 4 years PhD research he stayed a total of 19 months abroad at foreign research institutes. Gaining expertise in life cycle thinking he also evaluates food products, biobased plastics, wood products and insect based protein products. In these activities Wouter contributes to sustainable development by providing an environmental, social and economic systems' insight in these interdisciplinary projects, optimization feedback and life cycle engineering solutions, e.g. end-of-life options, cascade use, temporary storage. Specialties: Life cycle assessment; bio-based products; land use and land use change; carbon accounting