Edgar Hertwich

Biography

Edgar Hertwich is a Principal Research Scholar in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program. He has a keen interest in studying the interaction of physical and social systems in shaping the outcomes of social, economic, and technological development. His methods include life-cycle assessment, input-output economics, dynamic product cohort models, and statistics. His key scientific contributions include:

- Quantification of carbon footprints of consumption across countries and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions embodied in international trade, investigating the role of consumption and trade in causing climate change.
- Environmental life cycle assessment of energy scenarios, enabling the identifications of the significant synergies and trade-offs of the energy transition away from fossil fuels.
- The study of climate benefits and resource savings of the circular economy, material efficiency, and demand reduction, addressing the most important material uses in society: buildings, transport systems, and machinery and equipment.

Hertwich has been a principal research scholar at IIASA since 2025, a visitor in 2024, and a research scholar in 2002-2003. He was a professor of industrial ecology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) from 2003-2015 and 2019-2026, and at Yale University from 2015-2019. He co-founded two companies with former students and team members and serves as a partner in XIO Sustainability Analytics, an Oslo-based startup.

Hertwich was born in Salzburg, Austria. He has an engineering degree from the HTL Braunau, a Bachelor in physics (Magna Cum Laude) from Princeton University, USA, and MSc and PhD degrees in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He served as president of the International Society for Industrial Ecology in 2017-2018. During his presidency, the society was incorporated as an independent legal entity in the Netherlands and received an independent secretariat. The society had originally been founded by Professor Thomas E. Graedel as a project at Yale University.

In 2023, he was awarded NTNU's prize for excellence in research or artistic activities. Hertwich has served as one of fifteen members of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change in its first period (2022-2026), which helped define the EU's -90% emission reduction target for 2040. He also led the development of a report on the energy supply shortage in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Since 2007, he has served as a member of the International Resource Panel, where he coordinated a report on resource efficiency and climate change. This work has been used in many policy processes. It informed the European Union's Circular Economy Action Plan and the Renovation Wave, part of its climate policy for the building sector. Hertwich is ranked among the top 100 researchers in the world in the fields of environmental science and climate change, according to separate assessments conducted by researchers at Stanford University and Reuters. He is a highly cited researcher according to the Web of Science.

Hertwich was a lead author of the energy systems chapter and the methods annex of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), as well as a contributor to the Technical Summary and the Summary for Policymakers. He contributed to the Global Energy Assessment and serves on the editorial boards of Environmental Science & Technology, the Journal of Industrial Ecology, and the Journal of Economic Structures.


Last update: 12 MAY 2026