SONIA VALDIVIA

Sonia Valdivia

Scientific Co-Chair

ABOUT

Prof. Dr. Sonia Valdivia is Scientific Director at the World Resources Forum Association. She works at WRFA since 2014 on the areas of sustainable recycling industries and life cycle sustainability management. Before she was Programme Officer at UNEP, and coordinated the Secretariat of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. She was conferred an Honorary Professorship by the Leuphana University of Luneburg, Sustainability Faculty. She is convener of the ISO 59014 on Secondary Materials (Principles, Sustainability & Traceability Requirements). She has a PhD in environmental management and policies from the Technical University of Karlsruhe (KIT) and has worked for organizations such as UNITAR, NACEC (North American Center for Environmental Cooperation), INE (Mexican Institute of Ecology) and as a GIZ coordinator of the Pan-American Network for Environmental Waste Management. She is co-author of the ‘ISO IWA 19 on Guidance Principles for the Sustainable Management of Secondary Metals’, ‘UNEP Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment’, ‘UNEP Life Cycle Management – How business uses it to decrease footprint, create opportunities and make value chains more sustainable’,  ‘UNEP Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment’, ‘UNEP State of Natural Resource Management in Latin America – Opportunities for Sustainable Practices and Prioritisation of Resources’, ‘Medellin Declaration on Marine Litter in LCA’, ‘Position Paper on Using Life Cycle Assessment to achieve a circular economy’ and ‘Position Paper on Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment’.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE
  • Life cycle thinking
  • Social LCA
  • Environmental impact assessment
  • Standardisation
ORGANISATION

World Resources Forum Association

POSITION

Scientific Director

SCIENTIFIC TRACKS

Value chains, digitalisation