Daniel D. Moran

Tohoku University Graduate School of Environmental Studies (Tohoku Daigaku Daigakuin Kankyo Kagaku Kenkyuka)

Profile

I am an environmental economist studying resource use and GHG emissions associated with global supply chains. I contribute to developing input-output models which provide Scope 3 carbon footprint results. I also work with Scope 1 emissions models. The tools I use come from applied data science and economics.

Prior to joining NILU I taught at NTNU (10 years as tenured research professor), worked on Wall Street pricing ESG risk at MSCI, and assisted Nobel laureate Paul Romer writing an Principles of Economics textbook. The Eora embodied GHG emissions data model which I helped develop and continue to operate is widely used by both firms (large private bank and financial data providers) and institutions (IMF, UN, World Bank, EU Central Bank, African Development Bank, etc.).

Key words: data science; industrial ecology; environmental economics; carbon footprinting; biodiversity footprints; embodied water; scope 3; consumption-based accounting; LCA; input-output; material flow analysis; high performance computing

During the period 2025-2030 I am visiting as a Distinguished Professor at Tohoku University in Japan, at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies.

Profile on Google Scholar
LinkedIn
ORCiD: 0000-0002-2310-2275
Clarivate / Web of Science: AAE-6028-2019
Scopus/Elsevier ResearcherID: 12801754000
Publons

Contact

Email: dmor@nilu.no

NILU

Trondheim: Kjøpmannsgata 8, Trondheim 7013, Norway
Oslo: Instituttveien 18, 2007 Kjeller

Grants and Projects

• GreenGrocer: Maturing food footprint tools, solutions, and uptake to accelerate a rapid EU food transition (PI, €9,900,000m; Horizon Europe, 2025)
• Strategic Institute Initiative Funding Award (PI, €450,000; NILU, 2023)
• RISKRES - Using industrial ecology methods to evaluate socioeconomic risk and resilience to climate and environmental impacts (Supervisor, €460,000, Funder NFR, 2023)
• Actionable Data Indicators for Consumption-Based Emissions: London and New York City (Technical Advisory Board member; $110,000; C40 Cities. 2022)
• The Economics of Planetary Boundaries (Partner; €1,925,000 FORMAS. 2020)
• Young Research Talent Grant (FRIPRO): The Environmental Footprint of Cities, a New Approach (PI, $900,000, NFR. 2019)
• Value-at-risk to global supply chains from disruption to ecosystem services (PI, $50,000, United Nations Environment Programme. 2018)
• The Carbon Loophole in Climate Policy: Quantifying the Embodied Carbon in Traded Products (Partner, $100,000, ClimateWorks Foundation)
• FOOTPRINTS2.0: Linking Spatial GIS Data to MRIO Global Economic Models (wrote proposal; lead researcher, €650,000, NFR. 2016)
• University of Sydney Faculty of Science Scholarship for Postgraduate Research. 2010-2013. €97,000.
• 2015-2019. Contributing researcher. PRINCE: Policy-relevant indicators for national consumption and environment (total budget $1,500,000 Funder: Sweden/MISTRA)
• 2013-2016. Contributing researcher. CARBON CAP project on demand-side emissions reductions strategies (total budget €3,500,000, funder EU FP7)
• 2011-2014. Contributing researcher. CREEA project on environmental and economic accounting practices (total budget €4,400,000, funder EU FP7)

Awards

• Research.com Top 10 Economists in Norway in 2023
• Clarivate/Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2025
• Stanford/Elsevier/Scopus: World's Top 2% Scientists - 2024
• Stanford/Elsevier/Scopus: World's Top 2% Scientists - 2023
• Stanford/Elsevier/Scopus: Highly cited researcher during 2022
  Top 2% percentile in Environmental Sciences; top 1% in Economics
• Stanford/Elsevier/Scopus: Highly cited researcher during 2021
  Top 1.26% percentile in Environmental Sciences; top 3% in Economics
• Stanford/Elsevier/Scopus: Highly cited researcher during 2020
  Top 1.52% percentile in Environmental Sciences
• Stanford/Elsevier/Scopus: Highly cited researcher during 2019
  Top 1.55% percentile in Environmental Sciences

* Of the world's population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers™ are 1 in 1,000.

Press

I love communicating the science I work on. Uptake of my work includes:

• The Carbon Loophole study I co-authored for Climate Works Foundation was a piece of their ultimately successful lobbying effort for the US federal government to adopt "Buy Clean" legislation. See our editoral about that report in The Washington Post, The glaring loophole in our climate policies.
• The study I led on mapping biodiversity footprints of products, printed in Nature Ecology & Evolution, was widely covered in the press, including by National Geographic, Scientific American, TIME, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
• Our paper on the scope of individual action to reduce the EU's global carbon footprint was highlighted in a special report by The Economist about what individuals and companies can do to reduce their Scope 3 emissions.
• OpenGHGMap.net, which maps CO2 emissions for 108,000 EU cities, has received >300,000 views. In 2022 I presented this work at the US National Academies of Science.
• The Eora global supply chain database which I helped develop and continue to maintain, documents >5 billion global supply chains and their embodied carbon and resource footprints. That model has supported over 1,000 scientific papers, underpinned research results appearing in Nature and PNAS, and is is used by the UN, IMF, World Bank, and a number of large firms (names withheld).
• Our study on Scope 3 carbon footprint of 13,000 cities globally (citycarbonfootprints.info) was covered by Scientific American, National Geographic, Newsweek, the World Economic Forum, and Forbes, among others.
• Our seminal study on calculating biodiversity footprints published in Nature was widely covered in the press, including by Scientific American, BBC, Reuters, Le Monde, and many national magazines and newspapers (see #11 below). My colleague Edgar Hertwich wrote a nice commentary about the paper.
• Our study on the environmental footprint of foods (non-paywalled preprint PDF) which covered 99% of all foods, published in Nature Sustainability, and reported on by the Washington Post.

Teaching and Supervision

• Input-Output Analysis, Trade, and Environment (TEP4222, 7.5 ECTS credits), head instructor 2021, 2019; co-instructor 2022, 2020
• Industrial Ecology and Input Output Analysis (EP8119, 7.5 ECTS credits, doctoral seminar), course lecturer. 2021, 2022
• Invited instructor on Lund University's SAIL sustainability course in 2016. The course was held aboard a working square-rigged ship. My group rebuilt the original World3 system dynamics model as an offline, paper-based classroom game.
• Lecturer, EDGE Summer School, Bratislava School of Economics. 2017.
• Supervision: Francis Barre (PhD), Ziyang Zhu (postdoc), Johannes Többen (postdoc), Heran Zheng (postdoc), Kajwan Rasul (PhD), Daniel Avila-Ortega (PhD), Max Koslowski (MSc), Milda Petersone (MSc)
• PhD Opponent: Lily Purcell (University of Cork). External referee on a PhD Cum Laude decision at Leiden University.

Qualifications

• 2013 - PhD, School of Physics, The University of Sydney
• 2007 - MS, Environmental Studies and Sustainability, Lund University
• 2001 - BA, Philosophy, Whitman College

Main Projects

• The Eora MRIO provides Scope 3 footprint data for 15,000 sectors worldwide
• Carbon Footprints of 13,000 Cities project
• OpenGHGmap estimates direct CO₂ emisisons for 116,000 cities and counties in Europe.
• For students: 9 tough questions to help sharpen your paper