Material flow accounting

Material flow accounting (MFA) is the study of material flows on a national or regional scale. It is therefore sometimes also referred to as regional, national or economy-wide material flow analysis.Material flow accounting provides economy-wide data on material use. Through international standardization, this data has become reliable and comparable across countries. Increasingly, the data are also being made available in medium- to long-term time series allowing for the analysis of past trends as well as potential future developments. Material flow accounts provide information on the material inputs into, the changes in material stock within, and the material outputs in the form of exports to other economies or discharges to the environment of an economy. Material flow accounting can be used in national planning, especially for scarce resources, and also allows for forecasting. The method can be used to assess environmental burdens associated with the economic activities of a nation and to determine how material intensive an economy is.The principle concept underlying MFA is a simple model of this interrelation between the economy and the environment, in which the economy is an embedded subsystem of the environment. Similar to living beings, this subsystem is dependent on a constant throughput of materials and energy. Raw materials, water and air are extracted from the natural system as inputs, transformed into products and finally re-transferred to the natural system as outputs (waste and emissions). In order to highlight the similarity to natural metabolic processes, the terms “industrial” or “societal” metabolism have been introduced.Aside from calculating the net additions to stock (NAS) as a balancing item, flows within the economy are not considered (advances are currently being made in the field of dynamic stock modelling). MFA covers all solid, gaseous, and liquid materials, mobilized by humans or by their livestock, with the exception of bulk water and air. The unit of measurement is most commonly (metric) tonnes per year (t/a). Flows are distinguished by whether they are extracted domestically (domestic extraction, DE) or are trade flows (imports or exports). Materials are most commonly grouped according to four main material categories: biomass, fossil energy carriers, metals, and non-metallic minerals. The former category may be further differentiated by type of use into industrial and construction minerals. It is very important to note that MFA seeks to provide a complete picture of an economy’s material use so that materials are included in these accounts irrespective of whether or not they have direct market value. The most prominent non-market flows covered by MFA are grazed biomass and used crop residues as well as waste rock extracted during mining activities. In 2010, these material flows accounted for 21% of global extraction.The data collected in MFA is used to calculate several different standardized indicators:Direct Material Input (DMI) is a measure of the total material inputs into an economy and is calculated as the sum of domestic extraction (DE) and imports.The Physical Trade Balance (PTB) is a measure of net-imports and is calculated as the difference between imports and exports. Reflecting that material and money flow in opposite directions during trade, this is a contrast to the monetary trade balance which calculates net-exports.Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) is a measure of apparent consumption and calculated from domestic extraction plus imports minus exports (or DE plus PTB).Economy-wide MFA is a satellite system to the system of national accounts and provides a rich empirical database for analytical studies. More information on how the statistics are collected, under what legal framework and how they are defined is available on Economy-wide material flow accounts.