Francesco Pomponi

francesco pomponi

Prof Francesco Pomponi PhD FRSA FHEA

Professor

Biography

Francesco joined Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) in 2017 from the University of Cambridge as Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019, and Professor in 2021.

He is Chair of Sustainability Science , and also heads the Resource Efficient Built Environment Lab (REBEL). His academic expertise lies in life cycle assessment, embodied and whole life carbon, and the circular economy. Within the built environment his work revolves around low-carbon buildings, measurement, management and mitigation of environmental impacts, and passive design. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and secured in excess of £1.5M in funding from the EPSRC, the Royal Academy of Engineering, UKRI, Innovate UK and the EU. He is an Editor of Elsevier’s Sustainable Production and Consumption and editorial board member of several leading international journals.

Outside academic work, Francesco has acted as advisor and peer-reviewer for the International Energy Agency (IEA), for which he also represents the UK within the Annex 72. He has reviewed for the IPCC, LETI, CIBSE, and a number of other national and international bodies. In 2017 he contributed to the landmark RICS professional statement on whole life carbon in the built environment and in 2020 he led and co-authored the embodied carbon roadmap for Scotland.

Francesco is an elected Steering Committee Member of the UK’s Whole Life Carbon Network, a Fellow of the RSA and of the Higher Education Academy, and is available for consultancies and to hear from motivated and talented prospective PhD students.

News

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • Expert review panel member for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (Approved Document B)
  • Expert Reviewer - CIBSE Technical Memorandum 65
  • Invited expert for International Energy Agency Policy Forum - Materials trends in Building Construction
  • Expert Meeting of the International Energy Agency - Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
  • Royal Academy of Engineering - Frontiers of Engineering for Development symposium: The Circular Economy - Invited Participant
  • Scientific Committee Member - CIBSE 2019 (Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers) Symposium
  • Adviser and Reviewer for the International Energy Agency report on "Material Efficiency in Clean Energy Transitions"
  • Scientific Committee Member for IALCCE (International Association for Life Cycle Civil Engineering) 2018
  • UK Representative and Expert Member - Annex 72 of the International Energy Agency (IEA)
  • Co-author of the CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building) Building Performance Evaluation
  • RICS Professional Statement - Whole life carbon measurement: implementation in the built environment
  • SEEDS (Sustainable Ecological Engineering Design for Society) 2018 Scientific Committee Member

 

Conference Activity

  • Organiser of the RAEng funded Seminar on 'Post-disaster and Post-conflict Sheltering in Africa' (University of Cape Town)
  • Member of the scientific committee of the 34th International PLEA (Passive and Low Energy Architecture) Conference
  • Scientific Committee Member - CIBSE Technical Symposium 2018
  • Member of the organising committee of the 33rd International Passive and Low Energy Architecture Conference
  • Chair of the Design for Sustainability Track - International Sustainable Development Research Society
  • Chair of the Carbon Accounting and Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings Forum - Passive and Low Energy Architecture
  • Organiser of the 1st National Symposium on Embodied Carbon

 

Editorial Activity

  • Editor - Special Issue Energies (MDPI): Carbon footprinting and Life Cycle Assessment
  • Editorial Board Member (Structures - Elsevier)
  • Editor of Sustainable Production and Consumption (Elsevier)
  • Lead Editor - Special Issue Structures (Elsevier): Sustainable structures: whole-life analysis, environmental impacts, and material efficiency
  • Lead Editor - Special Issue Sustainability (MDPI): Low Energy Architecture and Low Carbon Cities: Exploring Links, Scales, and Environmental Impacts
  • Lead Editor for the Springer Nature book on 'Embodied Carbon in Buildings: Measurement, Management, and Mitigation'

 

External Examining/Validations

  • Construction Engineering Masters - Laing O'Rourke Centre for Construction Engineering and Technology, University of Cambridge (External Examiner)
  • Master's Degree IDBE (Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment), University of Cambridge

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Shortlisted for the Lord Moulton Medal (IChemE)
  • Winner (Design, Innovation & Creativity category) @ RISE Awards 2019
  • Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce)
  • Winner of the Leeds Sustainability Institute for Contribution to the Field (Circular Economy in the Built Environment)
  • Highly Commended CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building) Best Academic Paper Award
  • Fellow of the HEA (Higher Education Academy)
  • Highly Commended CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building) Best Technical Paper Award

 

Grant Reviewer

  • EPSRC Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS) - Grant Reviewer for Early Career Researcher Fellowships
  • European Science Foundation - Reviewer for Postdoctoral Fellowships
  • UKRC Peer Reviewer (Transforming Construction Network Plus - TCN+)
  • EPSRC Peer Reviewer (Responsive mode standard proposals)
  • Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) - Grant Reviewer
  • Invited Reviewer FWO Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • Invited reviewer for funding applications for Industrial Doctorates - Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)
  • Reviewer for funding applications (Industry Fellowships) to the Royal Society

 

Invited Speaker

  • COP26 Cities, Adaptation and Resilience Roundtable at the British Academy
  • London Climate Action Week - Sustainable Wood for Cities
  • One Works - Industry training event on embodied carbon
  • Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership - Embodied and whole life carbon lecture
  • University of Cambridge - Guest Lecturer Future of the Built Environment
  • SICSA Annual Conference - Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability
  • Intensive postgraduate course on LCA and Uncertainty Analysis - Universidade de Campinas (Brazil)
  • Invited keynote - Opening Ceremony of the Sudanese Sustainable Building Council
  • Invited speaker: UK Green Building Council Event "Advancing Net Zero: next steps in holistic carbon reduction"
  • Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyor (RICS) CPD Day - Sustainable Construction and Building Materials
  • Festival of Research - Brighton Doctoral College, Early Career Researchers discussion panel
  • Guest Lecture on Embodied Carbon - Universidad Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca, Bogota' (Colombia)
  • Embodied carbon in the built environment, Cambridge Architectural Research
  • Invited Keynote: Life Cycle Assessment in the Built Environment, Leeds Sustainability Institute
  • Invited speaker: Sustainable Construction - University of Brighton

 

Media Activity

  • Sustainability Professor to help VC Climate Tech Fund
  • Interviewed for a piece on Urban Planning
  • Interview (Carbon Brief) for the article: ‘Construction fever’ responsible for one fifth of China’s CO2 emissions
  • Interviewed by the BBC World Service on Urban Heat Island
  • Featured article on the BBC World Service website

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • PhD External Examiner (University of Manchester)
  • PhD External Examiner - Aalto University [Finland]
  • PhD External Examiner (Cardiff University)
  • PhD External Examiner - Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge

 

Reviewing

  • Invited Reviewer Elsevier book on "Sustainable Construction Technologies"
  • Invited Reviewer by the Italian Ministry of Education for the Scientific Quality of its Research
  • Reviewer for more than 40 internationally leading journals - full details at: https://publons.com/researcher/1552342/francesco-pomponi/peer-review/

 

Date


91 results

Size matters in a Circular Economy

Conference Proceeding
Weigend, R., Viero, G., Schindler, T., Guadarrama, G., & Pomponi, F. (in press)
Size matters in a Circular Economy
The Circular Economy (CE) is conceived by many as paramount to decouple economic growth from environmental impacts and resource depletion. Implementing this economic paradigm ...

Decoupling density from tallness in analysing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of cities

Journal Article
Pomponi, F., Saint, R., Arehart, J. H., Gharavi, N., & D'Amico, B. (2021)
Decoupling density from tallness in analysing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of cities. npj Urban Sustainability, 1, https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-021-00034-w
The UN estimate 2.5 billion new urban residents by 2050, thus further increasing global greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and energy demand, and the environmental impacts cause...

Emissions assessment of bike sharing schemes: The case of Just Eat Cycles in Edinburgh, UK

Journal Article
D’Almeida, L., Rye, T., & Pomponi, F. (2021)
Emissions assessment of bike sharing schemes: The case of Just Eat Cycles in Edinburgh, UK. Sustainable Cities and Society, 71, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103012
Transport accounts for 40 % of global emissions, 72 % of which comes from road transport, and private cars are responsible for 60 % of road transport emissions. In cities, sel...

Whole-life embodied carbon in multi-storey buildings: steel, concrete and timber structures

Journal Article
Hart, J., D'Amico, B., & Pomponi, F. (2021)
Whole-life embodied carbon in multi-storey buildings: steel, concrete and timber structures. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 25(2), 403-418. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13139
Buildings and the construction industry are top contributors to climate change, and structures account for the largest share of the upfront greenhouse gas emissions. Whilst a ...

A New Estimate of Building Floor Space in North America

Journal Article
Arehart, J. H., Pomponi, F., D'Amico, B., & Srubar III, W. V. (2021)
A New Estimate of Building Floor Space in North America. Environmental Science and Technology, 55(8), 5161-5170. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c05081
Floor space is a key variable used to understand the energy and material demands of buildings. Using recent datasets of building footprints, we employ a random forest regressi...

The greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear energy – Life cycle assessment of a European pressurised reactor

Journal Article
Pomponi, F., & Hart, J. (2021)
The greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear energy – Life cycle assessment of a European pressurised reactor. Applied Energy, 290, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116743
Nuclear energy contributes ~10% of the global electricity generation and different views exist on its carbon-intensity and sustainability. Context is crucial to determine the ...

A circular economy: where will it take us?

Journal Article
Hart, J., & Pomponi, F. (2021)
A circular economy: where will it take us?. Circular Economy and Sustainability, 1(1), 127-141. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-021-00013-4
The avalanche of environmental challenges, from local to global and back, has prompted responses at all levels from personal to inter-governmental. The results of these respon...

Carbon Sequestration and Storage in the Built Environment

Journal Article
Arehart, J. H., Hart, J., Pomponi, F., & D'Amico, B. (2021)
Carbon Sequestration and Storage in the Built Environment. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 27, 1047-1063. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2021.02.028
The increasing interest in bio-based construction materials has resulted in the emergence of the concept of “buildings as a carbon sink”. Quantifying and comparing the effects...

Water, energy, and carbon dioxide footprints of the construction sector: a case study on developed and developing economies

Journal Article
Pomponi, F., & Stephan, A. (2021)
Water, energy, and carbon dioxide footprints of the construction sector: a case study on developed and developing economies. Water Research, 194, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2021.116935
Buildings and construction are major driver of anthropogenic environmental effects. While energy use and CO2 emissions of buildings and construction have been quantified, thei...

Low Energy Architecture and Low Carbon Cities: Exploring Links, Scales, and Environmental Impacts

Book
Pomponi, F., & D'Amico, B. (2020)
Low Energy Architecture and Low Carbon Cities: Exploring Links, Scales, and Environmental Impacts. MDPI. https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-03943-816-7

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • Experimental validation and in-situ monitoring of the operational performance of ventilated facades in Colombia
  • Quantifying embodied carbon reduction in buildings, University of Cambridge
  • Implementing Whole Life Carbon in Buildings (IWLCiB), University of Cambridge
  • Symposium on Computational Fluid Dynamics, UFV - Santander Universities
  • Life Cycle Assessment of double skin facade technologies for non-domestic refurbishments in the UK

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