[ Design for Environment ] [ Life Cycle Assessment ] [ Industrial Ecology ] [ Materials Flow Analysis ]

Materials Flow Analysis (MFA) [1-4] applies the concepts of industrial ecology to study how materials and energy flow into, throughout, and out of a system.  Bringezu, et al., [5], Cooper [6], Bouman, et al. [7], and Kandelaars [8] provide overviews and analysis of MFA models.  Specifically, MFA refers to accounts of physical units such as tones or measures of impact such as Global Warming Potentials [9,10] resulting from the extraction of, production, transformation, consumption, recycling, and disposal of materials within a system.  The target of the analysis can be a selected substance (a chemically defined element or compound such as carbon dioxide), a material (natural or technically transformed matter that is used for commercial or non-commercial purposes such as platinum), a product (such as a fuel cell), or an economy (such as the US as described in [11,12]).  For example, in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a MFA methodology, the target is one unit of a product within a specific or average process chain. 

Cooper [6] illustrates that creating MFA models that capture the inputs and outputs of a system of processes (such as product manufacturing and materials recycling processes), mines (such as mineral mines), and sinks (such as a landfill or the atmosphere) allows decision-makers to better understand the potentially hidden interactions related to making a decision around a single process, mine, or sink. MFA methods are gaining in popularity as a means to apply “systems view” to many types of decisions: from product development and design, to business management, to public policy, etc. Coordination of Regional and National Material Flow Accounting for Environmental Sustainability (ConAccount) functions as an international platform for MFA discussions and lists many MFA reports, primarily European, on their website. Whereas ConAccount focuses on MFAs at the national and regional levels, activities related to products (e.g., LCAs) are currently led by ISO standardization efforts.

Cited Literature

1.   Ayers, R.U., A.V. Kneese, “Production, consumption, and externalities,” American Economic Review, 59, 282-297.

3.    Ayers R.U., “Industrial Metabolism,” Technology and Environment, National Academy Press, 1989.

4.    Ayres, R.U., U.E. Simonis, Industrial Metabolism: Restructuring for Sustainable Development, United Nations University Press, 1994.

5.    Bringezu, S., R. Behrensmeier, H. Schütz, Material Flow Accounts Part I General Aspects, Aluminum, National Overall Accounts, Wuppertal Institute Department for Material Flows and Structural Change, 1995.

6.    Cooper, J.S., “Categorization of Decision-Making Tools: from needs to analysis,” Invited presentation, SETAC 21^st Annual Meeting, Nashville, Tennessee, November 12-16, 2000.

7.    Bouman, M., R. Heijungs, E. van der Voet, J. van den Bergh, G. Huppes, “Material flows and economic models: an analytical comparison of SFA, LCA, and partial equilibrium models, Ecological Economics, 32, 195-216, 2000.

8.    Kandelaars, P.A., Economic models of material-product chains for environmental policy, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.

9.    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 1994: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change and an Evaluation of the IPCC IS92 Emission Scenarios, Cambridge University Press, Great Britain, 1994.

10.   Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 1992 IPCC Supplement, IPCC secretariat, World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 1992.

11.   Interagency Working Group on Industrial Ecology, Material and Energy Flows, Material and Energy Flows, Report prepared for the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, 1998.

12.   Wernick, I.K., N.K.Themelis, “Recycling Metals for the Environment,” Annual Review of Energy and Environment, Volume 23, 465-497, 1998.

For more information, contact Associate Professor Joyce Smith Cooper at cooper@me.washington.edu