ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s the concept of societal metabolism has gained broad acceptance within the scientific community as a framework for analyzing society–nature interactions. The analytical tool used to operationalize the concept, material flow accounts, calculates the biophysical exchange relationships of a socioeconomic system, usually a nation state, with its natural environment. World-system theory, in contrast, deals with global social change and the interaction between nations. It is concerned with the historical development of the world economy and its political and economic structures and processes.
