Patricia van Loon

Associate Professor, at the division of Supply and Operations Management, at the Department of Technology Management and Economics.

Patricia has a background in Industrial Engineering and Operations management and Logistics from Technical University Eindhoven (in the Netherlands). She gained her PhD degree from Heriot-Watt University (in Scotland) in 2013 with a thesis called “An assessment of the sustainability of e-fulfilment models for the delivery of fast-moving consumer goods to the home”. Between 2014 and 2017 she was employed at INSEAD (France) as postdoc working on the FP7 ResCoM project with as aim to help manufacturers to close the loop by taking back products for reuse and remanufacturing. In Sweden, she worked at RISE and Chalmers Industriteknik, before starting at Chalmers as assistant professor in 2020.

Her research spans around closed-loop supply chains, circular economy, and sustainability, focusing on the transition of larger manufacturing companies towards circular business models and the economic and environmental impact of these new business models. She has studied a wide variety of products, including various automotive components, batteries, electric tools, furniture, lights, strollers, and white goods. She further explores how the environmental impact of online retailing can be reduced.

She has worked and published together with large manufacturing companies such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Gorenje. Her work is published in the International Journal of Production Research, Business Strategy and the Environment, Environmental Science and Technology, Journal of Industrial Ecology, among others.