Livia Cabernard was born in Switzerland in 1991. She studied Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich from 2011 to 2017. She holds a Major in Biochemical Cycles and Pollutant Dynamics and had a particular interest in microplastics research during her studies. For her master thesis, she spent six months at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Helgoland (Germany) to optimize an automated method based on Raman spectroscopy for microplastics analysis in the North Sea. During her internship at the Cantonal Office for the Environment (AWEL) in 2016, she implemented a procedure to quantify microplastics in surface and sewage waters of Zurich.

From 2017–2021, Livia Cabernard has completed her PhD studies at the interdisciplinary interface of the Institute of Environmental Engineering and the Institute of Science, Technology and Policy at ETH Zürich. Her thesis, entitled “Creating transparency in global value chains and their environmental impacts to support sustainability policies”, was awarded with the ETH medal in 2022. During her thesis and subsequent work as a postdoc at ETH Zürich, she demonstrated the practical relevance of her work through global and national case studies, including the plastics supply chain, the metals and building material industry, and agri-food systems. Since 2023, Livia Cabernard is heading the newly created chair in Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agricultural Systems at TUM.

Livia Cabernard’s research is dedicated to advancing sustainability in global supply chains of food and agricultural systems. Her goal is to create a high-resolution model of global agri-food supply chains with extensive sustainability assessment and scenario modeling. Her research bridges the realms of life-cycle assessment and earth observation data for improved environmental impact assessment, with a special emphasis on climate and biodiversity effects. Moreover, she aims to combine top-down life-cycle assessment with integrated assessment modes, thus unearthing novel insights into sustainable pathways for the future of agri-food systems and examining trade-offs within the bioeconomy.

Through case studies at global and national scales, Livia Cabernard's research provides insights to guide sustainable decision-making for industry and policy makers. Her interdisciplinary research has been published in nature journals and several reports by the European Commission and the UNEP International Resource Panel, including requests upon the G20 presidency. Her findings have been included in the UNEA guidelines, cited by the Swiss Federal Council and achieved high media coverage. Her work also supports industry and policy through the open-source software and database she created for improved sustainability assessment of global supply chains.

Cabernard, L., & Pfister, S. (2022). Hotspots of Mining-Related Biodiversity Loss in Global Supply Chains and the Potential for Reduction through Renewable Electricity. Environmental Science & Technology, 56(22), 16357-16368. Link study

Cabernard, L., Pfister, S., & Hellweg, S. (2022). Improved sustainability assessment of the G20’s supply chains of materials, fuels, and food. Environmental Research Letters, 17(3), 034027. Link study

Cabernard, L., Pfister, S., Oberschelp, C., & Hellweg, S. (2022). Growing environmental footprint of plastics driven by coal combustion. Nature Sustainability, 5(2), 139-148. Link study

Cabernard, L.; Pfister, S. (2021). A highly resolved MRIO database for analyzing environmental footprints and Green Economy Progress. Science of The Total Environment, 142587. Link study

Cabernard, L.; Pfister, S.; Hellweg, S. (2019). A new method for analyzing sustainability performance of global supply chains and its application to material resources. Science of the Total Environment 2019, 684, 164-177. Link study