On the importance of linking inputs and outputs in material flow accounts. The Weight of Nations report revisited

Abstract

The influential Word Resources Institute reportThe Weight of Nationsof 2000 called for additionalresearch effort to understand linkages between primary material inputs and output of waste andemissions in materialflow accounts. The report proved highly influential in driving efforts towardmethodological harmonization of national materialflow accounts but had little impact in triggeringadditional study into comprehensive materialflow accounts and material balances for national econo-mies. In this research we test the feasibility of linking inputs to outputs by establishing materialflowbalances forfive countries including Germany, Japan, the United States, China and Australia usingavailable statistical data and agreed calculation methods. While statistics for emissions to air are welldocumented, statistics for solid waste are usually incomplete and for many countries are of poor quality.We employ stock andflow modeling to determine the“waste potential”of a national economy, whichcan be used to validate statistically reported wasteflows. We ask whether the accounts could be up-scaled to a global dataset and discuss challenges and limitations of such an approach; we also revisitthefindings of the WRI report andfind that methodological improvements to materialflow accountingyield more reliable results than could be achieved two decades ago. Unifying input and output accountsin one coherent framework, i.e. a material balance, allows alignment of the policy domains of resourceefficiency, greenhouse gas and pollution abatement, and waste minimization. Show more