Journal
SUSTAINABILITY
Volume 9, Issue 7, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/su9071049
Keywords
socioeconomic metabolism; economy-wide material flow analysis; in-use stocks of materials; stock-flow relations; dynamic stock model; decoupling; socioecological transformation
Funding
- Austrian Science Funds (FWF) [P27890, P29130-G27]
- ERC-AdG-proposal MAT_STOCKS [741950]
- Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [P29130, P27590] Funding Source: Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
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Fundamental changes in the societal use of biophysical resources are required for a sustainability transformation. Current socioeconomic metabolism research traces flows of energy, materials or substances to capture resource use: input of raw materials or energy, their fate in production and consumption, and the discharge of wastes and emissions. This approach has yielded important insights into eco-efficiency and long-term drivers of resource use. But socio-metabolic research has not yet fully incorporated material stocks or their services, hence not completely exploiting the analytic power of the metabolism concept. This commentary argues for a material stock-flow-service nexus approach focused on the analysis of interrelations between material and energy flows, socioeconomic material stocks (in-use stocks of materials) and the services provided by specific stock/flow combinations. Analyzing the interrelations between stocks, flows and services will allow researchers to develop highly innovative indicators of eco-efficiency and open new research directions that will help to better understand biophysical foundations of transformations towards sustainability.
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