Circular Economy studies, actions and beyond
About Julie Metta
- Visiting CEE ZHAW (since 2025)
- Postdoc in Economics, Irege USMB (since 2025)
- Postdoc in Economics, Tilburg (since 2023)
- Senior Research Associate, KU Leuven (since 2023)
- Researcher at the Circular Economy Policy Research Center (CE Center) (2025)
- Member of the Leuven Institute of Mobility (Since 2021)
Current projects
- HEU MSCA Postdoc (2025-2028)
- French ANR PRICk (2024-2028)
- HEU Circomod (2022-2026)
- UnaVEx (2024-2027)
Past projects
- French ANR Scarcyclet (2021-2025)
- Coordination team – H2020 project Pop-Machina (2019-2023)
- Building Capacities and Strategies of Trade Union Involvement in shaping a Just Transition towards a Sustainable and Decarbonised Industry (2020-2022)
- Fiscal treatment and market trends of pickup trucks in Belgium (2022)
- Putting circular textile into work – The employment potential of circular clothing in the Netherlands (2020-2021) – report available online and a summary can be downloaded here
And about the other story…
Julie Metta is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Post doctoral researcher at Irege, USMB, ZHAW and Tilburg University and voluntary senior research associate at KULeuven. In her current project (DECEP), Julie examines how circular economy policies and business models shape inequality, redistribution, and broader social outcomes, with the aim of clarifying who benefits, who may be disadvantaged, and how circular transitions can be designed to be both environmentally effective and socially fair.
Julie is highly involved in multidisciplinary academic projects enhancing sustainable policies. Passionate about sharing and learning about environmental practices, Julie is also socially engaged and dedicated to reducing waste generation and resource consumption, while enhancing civil initiatives.
Julie got her Ph.D. in 2023 at the Faculty of Economics, KU Leuven, Belgium, conducting research on Environmental Economy. Julie’s main research interests are environmental policy, collaborative, behavioural, resources and transportation economics. Her Ph.D. thesis was funded by the European H2020 project Pop-Machina . In this context, Julie developed economic models and conducted empirical research to assess the potential of the circular economy with regard to human components (e.g. labour, skills, redistribution).
After obtaining her Master of New Energy and Climate Change Engineering degree from INSA Strasbourg, France, in 2014, Julie spent 5 years in Hong Kong. First, she acted as scientific officer for the French Consulate, where she promoted France’s actions and policies on climate change, energy and environment among Hong Kong stakeholders, academics, and civil-society. Then, Julie worked on Circular Economy as research assistant at the multidisciplinary School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, Julie founded “Sous les dechets, la plage” which raises environmental awareness and organizes seashore cleanings. She has also co-created and managed the Labdoo.org Hong Kong Hub.
From 2019 until 2025, Julie was based in Leuven where she was involved in the local maker community and has co-founded the Labdoo.org Belgium Hub.
Labdoo is a non-profit collaborative social network that brings sanitized second hand computers to communities in need. The computers are loaded with educational applications and sent around the world without incurring any economic cost and without generating additional CO2 emissions to the Planet.
Julie Metta 