Justin Z. Lian, PhD

Sustainability scientist | Sustainable healthcare | Industrial ecology

I develop life cycle assessment and decision-support models for healthcare, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and high-control industrial systems.

My work connects product design, facility operation, clinical workflow, procurement, waste management, and policy decisions. The central question is how environmental evidence can become usable for decision-makers across clinical care, procurement, manufacturing, and policy.

Research Focus

Sustainable healthcare

Pathway-level and intervention-level LCA for clinical workflows, medical devices, surgical instruments, ICU consumables, sterilization, waste, and hospital operations.

Sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing

Prospective LCA, life cycle costing, green chemistry, solvent use, API process routes, and environmental KPI design for early-stage process and technology decisions.

Sustainable medical devices and facilities

Environmental assessment of medical devices, clinical consumables, microfluidic technologies, surgical instruments, cleanrooms, disinfection workflows, and high-control facilities.

Industrial ecology methods

Scenario-based LCA, dynamic inventories, uncertainty analysis, machine-learning-supported emission factors, carbon accounting, and decision-oriented sustainability models.

Current Work

I am a researcher at Erasmus Medical Center (Erasmus University Rotterdam), where I develop modular environmental assessment methods for clinical care pathways through the ECO-PATH project. The current work structures care delivery into reusable modules, including diagnostics, imaging, laboratory tests, medication, procedures, anesthesia, inpatient care, sterilization, waste management, and follow-up care.

Healthcare is the main organizing line of my current research, but it does not define the full agenda. I also work on cleanrooms, carbon management, renewable infrastructure, wastewater systems, additive manufacturing, and environmental forecasting.

Selected Evidence

Care pathways Modular LCA framework for urology and gastroenterology pathways at Erasmus MC.

Circular surgery LCA of reusable cataract surgery instruments, with a 24% reduction from 184 to 140 kg CO2-eq per operating day.

ICU consumables Assessment of UV-C disinfection workflows for unused ICU consumables, with up to 50% impact reduction across key categories.

Cleanroom systems Global scenario analysis of cleanroom energy systems, connecting facility operation with future electricity and climate trajectories.

Pharmaceutical synthesis LCA studies of pharmaceutical systems, including molnupiravir synthesis routes, solvent use, process design, and methodological gaps in pharmaceutical decision support.

Solar-powered sanitation Machine learning and LCA of Sol-Char systems, evaluating how solar thermal treatment can support decentralized sanitation in developing-region and resource-constrained settings under climatic and economic constraints.

Collaboration Interests

I am interested in collaborations that make sustainability assessment more useful for clinical, industrial, and policy decisions. Current priorities include sustainable healthcare pathways, pharmaceutical manufacturing, medical devices, facility decarbonization, prospective LCA, and data-driven sustainability models.