ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the standardized economy-wide material flow accounting (ew-MFA) indicators. In ew-MFA, the socio-economic system is commonly defined to include humans, their artefacts, and livestock. Ew-MFA focuses on the flows into and out of the socio-economic system, treating the transformation or integration within the system as balancing items. Synergies between ew-MFA studies and resource nexus research can often be traced back to the common interest in the two approaches in analytically bridging the perceived disconnect between societies and the resource base. In an analogy to the metabolism of a living organism, the concept of social metabolism proposes that a society requires material and energy inputs which it processes and assimilates for the purposes of societal reproduction and then discharges as wastes or emissions. The material productivity indicator requires us to examine not only the economic performance of an economy but also the associated material use.
