Chapter 15Materials Flow Analysis as a Tool for Understanding Long-Term Developments

Materials ¦ow analysis (MFA) (Brunan and Rechberger, 2004) is the study of physical¦owsthroughthetechnosystem(alsofrequentlycalled“theeconomy”).This methodisalsoreferredtoasindustrialmetabolism(AyresandSimonis,1994). In contrasttomanyeconomicstudies,industrialmetabolismisnotprimarilyfocused onvalue,butratheronphysicalquantitiessuchasmass(expressedinkilotons,or 106 kg) and energy (expressed in GWh, which equals 3.6 × 106 MJ). The technosystemreferstothepartofrealitythatis-moreorless-controlledbyhumansandthat istransformedtoservehuman-denedpurposes.AconcisediscussionofMFAcan be found in Gupta and Lambert (2008).