Morten Birkved is Professor of Life Cycle Engineering and Head of SDU Life Cycle Engineering at the University of Southern Denmark. His research focuses on life cycle engineering, life cycle inventory modelling, system modelling, multi-criteria decision analysis, industrial ecology, and environmental sustainability assessment within the built environment.
He holds a PhD in Quantitative Sustainability Assessment from the Technical University of Denmark (2005) and an MSc in Environmental Chemistry from the University of Copenhagen (1998). Over the past three decades, his work has contributed significantly to the development of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, particularly in defining the field of inventory modelling and integrating temporal dynamics into LCA, pioneering the concept of dynamic LCA.
Professor Birkved has applied his research across diverse sectors including agriculture, food production, civil engineering, and sustainable resource consumption in both industrialised and emerging economies. He has collaborated with leading institutions such as MIT (US), NTNU (NO), TU Munich (DE), EPFL (CH), IIT Mumbai (IN), and Stellenbosch University (ZA), among many others.
Before joining SDU in 2018, he held academic positions at the Technical University of Denmark, including Associate Professor (2013–2018) and Assistant Professor (2009–2013). He has also worked in consultancy and governmental roles, including at ThinkStep, DHI Water and Environment, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, and COWI A/S.
Professor Birkved has extensive experience in project leadership, having served as Senior Project Manager at SDU, DTU, and in the private sector. Since 2023, he has been a member of the Independent Research Council of Denmark. He is also actively involved in academic teaching and curriculum development, having designed and taught courses at SDU, DTU, and the Royal Academy.
