Summary
Sustainability transformations imply fundamental changes in the societal use of biophysical resources. Current socioeconomic metabolism research traces flows of energy, materials or substances to capture resource use: input of raw materials or energy, their fate in production and consumption, and the discharge of wastes and emissions. This approach has yielded important insights into eco-efficiency and long-term drivers of resource use. But due to its focus on flows, socio-metabolic research has not yet incorporated material stocks or their services, thereby not fully realizing its analytic potential. MAT_STOCKS addresses this gap by developing a consistent typology, indicators and databases of material stocks and their services, building upon economy-wide material flow analysis. It will create a comprehensive, global, national-level, validated material stocks and services database as well as maps of material stocks from remote-sensing data. This will allow analyzing the stock/flow/service nexus and underpin highly innovative indicators of eco-efficiency overcoming limitations of current approaches which mainly relate resource use or emissions to population and GDP. New insights on stock/flow/service relations, the relevance of spatial patterns and options for decoupling will be used to create a dynamic model to assess option spaces for transformations towards sustainable metabolism. MAT_STOCKS will identify barriers and leverage points for future sustainability transformations and the SDGs, and elucidate their socio-ecological and political implications. Our preliminary analyses suggest that unravelling the stock/flow/service nexus provides a crucial missing link in socio-metabolic research because it explains why, how and where patterns of material and energy use change or remain locked-in. Thereby, important analytical insights will be introduced into the largely normative and local discourses on the transformation towards a sustainable society.
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More information & hyperlinks
| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/741950 |
| Start date: | 01-03-2018 |
| End date: | 31-08-2024 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | 2 483 686,06 Euro - 2 483 686,00 Euro |
Cordis data
Original description
Sustainability transformations imply fundamental changes in the societal use of biophysical resources. Current socioeconomic metabolism research traces flows of energy, materials or substances to capture resource use: input of raw materials or energy, their fate in production and consumption, and the discharge of wastes and emissions. This approach has yielded important insights into eco-efficiency and long-term drivers of resource use. But due to its focus on flows, socio-metabolic research has not yet incorporated material stocks or their services, thereby not fully realizing its analytic potential. MAT_STOCKS addresses this gap by developing a consistent typology, indicators and databases of material stocks and their services, building upon economy-wide material flow analysis. It will create a comprehensive, global, national-level, validated material stocks and services database as well as maps of material stocks from remote-sensing data. This will allow analyzing the stock/flow/service nexus and underpin highly innovative indicators of eco-efficiency overcoming limitations of current approaches which mainly relate resource use or emissions to population and GDP. New insights on stock/flow/service relations, the relevance of spatial patterns and options for decoupling will be used to create a dynamic model to assess option spaces for transformations towards sustainable metabolism. MAT_STOCKS will identify barriers and leverage points for future sustainability transformations and the SDGs, and elucidate their socio-ecological and political implications. Our preliminary analyses suggest that unravelling the stock/flow/service nexus provides a crucial missing link in socio-metabolic research because it explains why, how and where patterns of material and energy use change or remain locked-in. Thereby, important analytical insights will be introduced into the largely normative and local discourses on the transformation towards a sustainable society.Status
SIGNEDCall topic
ERC-2016-ADGUpdate Date
27-04-2024
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