Dr. Asaf Tzachor
עברית

Dr. Asaf Tzachor

School of Sustainability Founded by Israel Corp. ICL

Vice Dean, School of Sustainability Academic Director, Aviram Sustainability and Climate Program

Research and Teaching Expertise

  • sustainability
  • Dr Asaf Tzachor currently serves as Academic Director of the Aviram Program, Academic Director of the Yannay Institute, and Vice Dean of the School of Sustainability, at Reichman University (RUNI).
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    Between 2023-2025, Asaf served as Acting Dean of the School of Sustainability, overseeing 275 students and over 30 academic staff across multidisciplinary degree and honors programs. In this position, he secured large donations to enhance the school's offerings, resources, students, and staff. He launched the Aviram Program, a nationally unique honors program that integrates sustainability, technology, and management. He founded the Yannay Institute for Energy Security, promoting research in energy, technology and sustainability. He expanded the school's curricula to include state-of-the-art education in AI and Sustainability, ESG and Supply Chains, Industrial Ecology, Resource Management, and the Circular Economy.
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    Asaf arrives from the University of Cambridge, where he continues to conduct research at CSER, CSaP, and at the Cambridge Global Food Security Research Center. His research interests span a variety of topics within sustainability sciences, namely, sustainable resources management, scarcity risk, and circularity; sustainable food systems, risk and resilience; supply chains and disruption risks; and sustainability, artificial intelligence (AI) and risk.
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    His research has been published across the Nature Portfolio, including in Nature, Nature Sustainability, Nature Geoscience, Nature Food, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Water, Nature Communications, Nature Computational Science, and Nature Machine Intelligence. His studies were covered by leading international newspapers and magazines, including The Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Forbes, The Telegraph, TED, Popular Science, WIRED, MIT Technology Review, Inverse, The BBC, Associated Press, The Council on Foreign Relations, Agence France-Presse, Deutsche Welle, ABC, and more.
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    He completed his post-doctoral work on Extreme Risks and the Global Environment at the University of Cambridge. He wrote his doctoral research in UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences, STEaPP, and studied Environmental Sciences in the University of Oxford. He was a Research Scholar at Columbia University in the City of New York, and a Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Trust (WHT) Scholar in Balliol College, Oxford.
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    His policy-related work includes collaborations with the Governments of Germany, Finland, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, the World Economic Forum, UN Environment, UNDP, UNFSS, the OECD, the World Bank, and CGIAR. He conducted field-work in Japan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, Spain, Iceland, Canada, Texas, Costa Rica, and Jamaica.
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    Outside academia, Asaf served as Head of Strategy and Sustainability at the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MoEP) of Israel. In this position, he led the strategic arm of the principal environmental organization in the country, and contributed to several nationwide initiatives spanning several domains. These include the development of national wellbeing, sustainability and resilience indicators, in collaboration with the OECD, the Prime Minister's Office, CBS, and Bank of Israel; the design of Israel's environmental justice strategy, a multi-billion core initiative of the Ministry; and, leading the Ministry's strategy for GHG emission reduction and energy efficiency.
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    In addition, he initiated the application of behavioral sciences in national policy design, and represented the government in Harvard University's Behavioral Insights Group, and the OECD, oversaw the Ministry's sustainable urbanism strategy to develop some 300 policy instruments, and introduced the capital approach for sustainability in national policy making.
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    Asaf was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 list, The Marker's 40 Under 40 list, Microsoft's 100 most influential people in climate-tech list, and St. Gallen Symposium's 100 Leaders of Tomorrow list. In Reichman University, he received Teaching Distinction Award and Research Distinction Award.

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    Selected publications in Nature Portfolio Journals

     


     


    Wang, Y., Ma, F., Wang, H., Tzachor, A., ... & Lutter, S. (2025). Doubling of the global freshwater footprint of material production over two decades. Nature Sustainability, 1-13.

     


    Tzachor, A. (2025). Diversifying global communications beyond submarine cables. Nature Electronics, 8, 2025

     


    Lovat, S., Ben-Nissan, R., Milshtein, E., Tzachor, A., ... & Milo, R. (2025). Electro-microbial production techno-economic viability and environmental implications. Nature Biotechnology, 7, 2025

     


    Ma,  F., Wang, H., Tzachor, A., ... & Fu, B. (2025). The disparities and development trajectories of nations in achieving the sustainable development goals. Nature Communications, 16, 1107

     


    Dalhaus, T., Finger, R., Tzachor, A., Möhring, N. (2024). Innovations for pesticide application must consider environmental impact. Nature Food, 5, 2024

     


    Wang, P., Zhang, L.Y., Tzachor, A., & Wei-Qiang, C. (2024). E-waste challenges of generative artificial intelligence. Nature Computational Science, 4, 2024

     


    Heming, W., Wang, P., Zhang, X., Wei-Qiang, C., Tzachor, A., et al. (2024). Substantial increase in China’s manufactured sand supply. Nature Geoscience, 18, 2024

     


    Tzachor, A., Heming, W., et al. (2024). Addressing the excessive water consumption of materials manufacturing. Nature Water, 2, 2024

     


    Tzachor, A., et al. (2023). How to reduce Africa's undue exposure to climate risks. Nature, 620, 448

     


    Tzachor, A., et al. (2023). Large Language Models and agricultural extension services. Nature Food, 4, 2023

     


    Tzachor, A., et al. (2023). Digital twins: a stepping stone to ocean sustainability? Nature Portfolio Journal Ocean Sustainability, 2(10)

     


    Richards, C. E., Tzachor, A., Avin, S., Fenner, R. (2023). Rewards, risks and responsible deployment of artificial intelligence in water systems. Nature Water, 1(10)

     


    Tzachor, A., et al. (2022). Potential and limitations of digital twins to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Sustainability, 5(10), 822-829

     


    Tzachor, A., et al. (2022). Responsible artificial intelligence in agriculture requires systemic understanding of risks and externalities. Nature Machine Intelligence, 4(2), 104-109

     


    Tzachor, A. (2022). Novel foods for human and planetary health. Nature Food, 3(4), 247-248

     


    Tzachor, A., Richards, C. E., & Jeen, S. (2022). Transforming agrifood production systems and supply chains with digital twins. Nature Portfolio Journal Science of Food, 6(1), 47

     


    Tzachor, A., Richards, C. E., & Holt, L. (2021). Future foods for risk-resilient diets. Nature Food, 2(5), 326-329

     


    Mani, L., Tzachor, A., & Cole, P. (2021). Global catastrophic risk from lower magnitude volcanic eruptions. Nature Communications, 12(1), 4756

     


    Jobin, A., Kingson, M., Damasio, A., Georgios, K., Rickmer, B., Julia, S., ... & Luengo-Oroz, M. (2021). AI reflections in 2020. Nature Machine Intelligence, 3(1), 2-8

     


    Tzachor, A., et al. (2020). Artificial intelligence in a crisis needs ethics with urgency. Nature Machine Intelligence, 2(7), 365-366

     


     


    Selected publications in other journals


     


    Zhang, Y., Wang, Y., Ma, F., Tzachor, A., & Wang, H. (2026). Criticality and scale effects in China's power lithium-ion battery system. Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 415, 130595

     


    Lingli, H., Fishman, T., Merciai, S., Watari, T., Liang, Y., van der Voet, E., Tzachor, A., Wang, H., Wang, P., Bi, J., & Wang, R. (2026). Embodied Transboundary Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Opportunities of over 700 Belt and Road Initiative Projects. Environmental Science & Technology

     


    Smidt-Jensen, A., Asfur, M., Cohen, T., Tzachor, A., & Moomaw, W. R. (2026). Evaluating Carbon-Negative Spirulina Feed Supplementation as a Supply Chain Carbon Removal Strategy for More Sustainable Dairy Systems. Sustainability, 18(15), 7838

     


    Smidt-Jensen, A., Røgild, T. B., Cohen, T., Meshoulam, S., Iuclea, L., Sigurjónsson, H. Æ., Tzachor, A., & Moomaw, W. R. (2026). Life Cycle Assessment of Phycocyanin Food Colorant Production from Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) with Biostimulant Waste-Stream Utilization for Soil Carbon Sequestration to Achieve Net Carbon Removal. Foods, 15(4), 610.

     


    Wescombe, N. J., Martínez, J. G., Jehn, F. U., Wunderling, N., Tzachor, A., ... & Denkenberger, D. (2025). It's time to consider global catastrophic food failures. Global Food Security, 46, 100880.

     


    Xing, X., Huang,, Y. Wang, Y., Wang, H., ... & Tzachor, A. (2025). Revealing global supply risk of critical minerals essential for low-carbon energy technologies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 145160

     


    Gong, Y., Wang, H., Tzachor, A.,... & Tiunov, A. (2025). A decade of ecological and environmental research on the belt and road initiative: Evolution and future directions. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 217, 108217

     


    Gong, Y., Ma, F., Wang, H., Tzachor, A., ... & Schandl, H. (2025). The evolution of research at the intersection of industrial ecology and artificial intelligence. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 1-18

     


    Huang, Y., Wang, H., Tzachor, A. (2025). Assessing the environmental impacts associated with China's battery minerals and technologies. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 212, 107978

     


    Sun, W., Ma, F., Tzachor, A., ... & Wang, H. (2025). Bridging Environmentally Extended Input-Output Models and Complex Network Analysis: A Bibliometric Analysisof Trends and Opportunities. Journal of Cleaner Production, 144427

     


    Hou, L., Fishman, T., Wang, R., Tzachor, A., et al. (2024). A Comprehensive Accounting of Construction Materials in Belt and Road Initiative Projects. Environmental Science & Technology.

     


    Tzachor, A., et al. (2024). Photonic management of Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) in scalable photobioreactors to achieve biologically active unopposed vitamin B12. Discover Food, 4(1), 69.

     


    Wang, Y., Ma, F., Tzachor, A., et al. (2023). Quantifying economic sectoral iron commodity use and related vulnerability in China's supply chains. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 198, 107150

     


    Wang, Y., Tzachor, A., Wang, H., & Chen, W. Q. (2023). Critical minerals for sustainability: More haste, less speed. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 198, 107181

     


    Tzachor, A., et al. (2022). Environmental impacts of large-scale Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) production in hellisheidi geothermal park iceland: Life cycle assessment. Marine Biotechnology, 24(5), 991-1001

     


    Leal Filho, W., et al. (2022). Deploying artificial intelligence for climate change adaptation. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 180, 121662

     


    Tzachor, A., et al. (2021). Photosynthetically controlled spirulina, but not solar spirulina, inhibits TNF-α secretion: potential implications for COVID-19-related cytokine storm therapy. Marine Biotechnology, 23, 149-155

     


    Beard, S. J., Holt, L., Tzachor, A., et al. (2021). Assessing climate change’s contribution to global catastrophic risk. Futures, 127, 102673

     


     


    מונוגרפים עבור האקדמיה הישראלית הלאומית למדעים 


     


    אסף צחור (2021). דיונים נבחרים בגישת ההון לקיימות (87 עמודים). האקדמיה הלאומית הישראלית למדעים. ירושלים.

    קישור: https://doi.org/10.52873/Policy.2021.Wellbeing.01 

     


    אסף צחור (2021). הון טבעי והון טבעי קריטי בישראל (61 עמודים). האקדמיה הלאומית הישראלית למדעים. ירושלים.

    קישור: https://doi.org/10.52873/Policy.2021.Wellbeing.03