Material Flow Analysis

All societies depend on natural resources to feed, house, and transport people and to produce the goods and services everyday life depends upon. The magnitude of the physical interaction between society and nature may be measured through material flow accounting. The accounts measure the amount of materials extracted domestically - biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores, and construction materials - as well as traded materials and also measure the disposal of waste and emissions to the environment by taking a whole life cycle perspective. The accounts measure yearly material flows in tonnes and provide an information base about the scale of natural resource use that underpins human development and economic prosperity. Material flow accounts have become part of the system of integrated economy-environmental accounts and inform modern environmental policy making that understands environmental outcomes are greatly related to the process of consumption and production. Indicators based on material flow accounts play a major role in the environmental policy process and figure prominently in international debates about sustainable consumption and production, resource efficiency and decoupling, and the green economy.