Ulrika Engström Palme

Ulrika Engström Palme is a Senior Lecturer at the Environmental Systems Analysis department of Chalmers University of Technology. She holds a Master's in Biology from the University of Gothenburg and earned her PhD in 2007 with a thesis on sustainable urban water systems. Prior to joining academia, she gained industry experience working in waste management innovation and secondary education.

Her research focuses on developing sustainability indicators for environmental systems, with evolving applications from urban water infrastructure to corporate sustainability and currently sustainable land use and biodiversity metrics. She employs interdisciplinary methodologies including life cycle assessment and multi-criteria decision analysis to evaluate ecological impacts and resource management strategies.

Palme maintains active leadership roles in sustainability initiatives, serving on the board of Mistra Innovation since 2011, the Swedish EPA's scientific council for biodiversity since 2013, and the steering committee of Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre since 2016. Her publication record demonstrates consistent focus on refining sustainability assessment frameworks across different ecological contexts.

Recent research directions include developing biodiversity indicators for life cycle assessments, analyzing bioeconomy-ecosystem interactions, and advancing methods for evaluating cultural ecosystem services. Her work frequently addresses the practical implementation challenges of sustainability metrics in policy and industry contexts.

Key research projects she has contributed to include:

• SamBio: Biodiversity collaboration (2023-2025)
• Biomass production in sustainable landscapes (2019-)
• Bio-LCA: Biodiversity indicators for agriculture/forestry (2015-2018)
• Decision support for critical societal flows (2013-2016)
• Sustainable land use impacts (2010-2012)