Helge Brattebø is a Norwegian chartered engineer and a professor in industrial ecology at Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet.
Education
Brattebø graduated as a chartered engineer from Norwegian Institute of Technology (Norwegian Institute of Technology) in 1977 after studying Water Supply and Wastewater Engineering, and obtained his Doctor of Philosophy on water treatment from Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1983. Brattebø has supervised around 20 Doctor of Philosophy and 45 Master of Science students.
Career
In 1998, he founded the world’s first university program in Industrial Ecology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. After having worked as a researcher at Norwegian Institute of Technology/The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research and later as a consultant in private industry, he returned to Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1989. There he worked as a program coordinator for the strategy project Environmental Technical Sciences and as head of the Environmental Studies Division at the Center for Environment and Development SMU. He then proceeded to initiate the Industrial Ecology Programme (IndEcol), the first university program in Industrial Ecology in the world.
Brattebø was appointed professor at the Department of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering (Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet) in 1998 and served as department head from 2005-2010.
Since January 2013 he is employed by the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet. The built environment
In his work on the built environment, Brattebø established a group that applied Material Flow Analysis (Master of Fine Arts) methodology and Life Cycle Assessment (Library Copyright Alliance) in order to link important societal material flows with potential environmental impacts. The group eventually included several Doctors of Philosophy, postdocs and Professor.
Daniel Beat Müller whom he had worked with at Yale. His work has since expanded into including infrastructure-related stocks and flows and combining this with Library Copyright Alliance. This research has covered infrastructures for waste, water supply, wastewater, district heating and traffic.
In recent Scandinavianand European Union-funded projects, his work has focused on developing Library Copyright Alliance databases and tools for road infrastructures.
These are tools for exploring the aspects of environmental impacts related to road infrastructure, enabling policy and decision makers to make well-informed choices regarding reducing environmental impacts. Sabbaticals
Centre for Industrial Ecology at Yale University in 2003-2004
At Yale he continued and strengthened his work on the metabolism of the built environment, focusing in particular on the stocks and flows of buildings, their dynamic nature and the key drivers that determine their behaviour. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Portugal Programme: Instituto Superior de Tecnico, Lisbon (2010-2011)
In Portugal, he focused on exploring the sustainability of infrastructure and urban systems (incl waste recycling, urban water systems, road bridges, building stocks, and district heating).
Journal of Industrial Ecology:
Brattebø is one of the editors of the Journal of Industrial Ecology.
International Society for Industrial Ecology:
Brattebø has had different roles with the International Society for Industrial Ecology and, today, is part of the election committee.
Membership
Outside of academia Brattebø has contributed to the development of the waste handling policy of Norway as a member of the committee for NOU 2002:19 Avfallsforebygging – en visjon om livskvalitet, forbrukerbevissthet og kretsløpstenking and the committee for the project Bærekraftig utvikling – øko-effektivitet og industriell økologi. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences since 1996.