Hannah Droste

Hannah holds a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, Germany, where her thesis on a circular economy approach for automotive exterior lighting was carried out at Volvo Cars.
She subsequently worked as a Mechanical Design Engineer at Volvo Cars, specialising in Life Cycle Assessment and sustainable materials for automotive lighting.
Within SCARPA, Hannah is a doctoral fellow at Ghent University's Department of Green Chemistry and Technology.
Her research focuses on developing a digital twin of the European footwear metabolism with the goal of modelling future Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scenarios.
Her project develops a matrix-based sorting and recycling model for representative footwear types and materials, incorporating physical flow factors, costs and the carbon footprint. This model will be linked to an agent-based model to simulate the behaviour of value chain actors such as producers and consumers.
Hannah is motivated by the technical challenge of making footwear, a complex and difficult-to-recycle product, more suitable for circularity. Through her research, she aims to contribute to closing the gap between increasing consumption and the need for more sustainable and circular footwear systems.