Project outcome and publications

The MISO project investigates the long term development of the global socio-economic metabolism from 1900 to 2015 and tracks material resources through the economic system. In the focus of the research are in-use stocks of materials, i.e., the materials that accumulate in infrastructures, buildings and long living goods and what this accumulation of physical capital implies for sustainable resource use and Circular Economy. Stocks are of crucial importance for strategies towards a more sustainable resource use, because they provide services like shelter, mobility or supply and discharge which are key for human well-being, while building and maintaining these stocks as well as using them is a major driver for material and energy use. Figure 1 shows results for the development of material stocks and flows at the global scale. We find that the size of metabolism of the global economy not only has multiplied by a factor of 12 since 1900, it also changed from a throughput system based on renewable biomass to a stock-piling system based on fossil and mineral materials. The share of materials that are used to build and maintain long-living artefacts has more than doubled from 20% to more than 50% of the yearly inflow of materials. These materials remain in the system for decades and sometimes centuries before they become outflows of wastes at the end of their service live time. Consequently, the size of in-use stocks has increased from 35 to 960 bio. tons. We find that global stocks have grown at roughly the same pace as GDP and have reached a size similar to that of the stock of biomass in ecosystems. Differences in per capita stocks across world regions are large and many countries in the Global South have just begun to expand their infrastructures and built environment, but also in the industrialized countries stocks continue to grow. This expansion of stock will drive growth in global resource use in the next decades. According to our scenarios a global convergence at the current level of per capita stocks of industrialized countries until 2050 would increase the annual material demand by a factor 2.5 and result in the emission of 600 bio. t. of carbon to the atmosphere, even if substantial gains in resource efficiency are assumed. Our results further show that the degree of circularity of the global economy has declined from 50% in 1900 to 25% in 2015. Rather than reflecting changes in recycling patterns, this is due to far reaching structural changes in societies metabolism in the last century, particularly, the rapid growth of the overall size of material flows, massive stock building and the high share of fossil materials in input. We also expect that large amounts of materials will become available as secondary resources from retired stocks in the next decades. Our findings contribute to the development of strategies towards a Circular Economy and a more sustainable use of natural resources and they indicate the importance of a better understanding of the interrelation between resource flows, in-use stocks and well-being for sustainable development.

Peer reviewed journal articles

Haberl, H., Wiedenhofer, D., Pauliuk, S., Krausmann, F., Müller, D.B., Fischer-Kowalski, M., 2019. Sustainable society-nature interactions? Contributions from socio-metabolic research, Nature Sustainability 2, 173–184 .

Wiedenhofer, D., Fishman, T., Lauk, C., Haas, W., Krausmann, F. 2019. Integrating Material Stock Dynamics Into Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounting: Concepts, Modelling, and Global Application for 1900–2050, Ecological Economics 156, 121-133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.09.010.

Mayer, A., Haas, W., Wiedenhofer, D., Krausmann, F., Nuss, P., Blengini, G.A. 2019. Monitoring the circular economy in the EU28 - A mass-balanced assessment of economy wide material flows, waste and emissions based on official statistics, Journal of Industrial Ecology 23 (1), 62-76. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12809.

Krausmann, F., Lauk, C., Haas, W., Wiedenhofer, D. 2018. From resource extraction to outflows of wastes and emissions: The socioeconomic metabolism of the global economy, 1900-2015. Global Environmental Change 52 (2018) 131–140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.07.003.

Jacobi, N., Haas, W., Wiedenhofer, D., & Mayer, A. 2018. Providing an economy-wide monitoring framework for the circular economy in Austria: Status quo and challenges. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 137, 156-166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.05.022.

Duro, J.A., Schaffartzik, A., Krausmann, F., 2018. Metabolic inequality and its impact on efficient contraction and convergence of international material resource use. Ecological Economics 145, 430-440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.11.029 .

Miatto, A., Schandl H., Wiedenhofer, D., Krausmann, F., Tanikawa, H. 2017. Modelling long-term material flows and stocks of the road network in the United States. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 127, 168-178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.08.024.

Shao, Q., Schaffartzik, A., Mayer, M., Krausmann, F. 2017. The high ‘price’ of dematerialization: A dynamic panel data analysis of material use and economic recession, Journal of Cleaner Production, 167 (2017) 120-132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.08.158.

Krausmann, F., Schandl, H., Eisenmenger, N., Giljum, S., Jackson, T. 2017. Material Flow Accounting: Measuring Global Material Use for Sustainable Development. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 42, 647-675. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-060726 .

Haberl, H., Wiedenhofer, D., Erb, K-H., Görg, C. and Krausmann, F. 2017. The Material Stock–Flow–Service Nexus: A New Approach for Tackling the Decoupling Conundrum. Sustainability 9, 1049, doi:10.3390/su9071049.

Krausmann, F., Wiedenhofer, D., Lauk, C., Haas, W., Tanikawa, H., Fishman, T., Miatto, A., Schandl, H., Haberl H. 2017. Global socioeconomic material stocks rise 23-fold over the 20th century and require half of annual resource use. PNAS 114 (8), 1880-1885. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1613773114.

Mayer, A., Haas, W., & Wiedenhofer, D. (2017). How countries' resource use history matters for human well-being–an investigation of global patterns in cumulative material flows from 1950 to 2010. Ecological economics, 134, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.11.017 .

Wiedenhofer, D., Guan, D., Liu, Z., Meng, J., Zhang, N., & Wei, Y. M. 2017. Unequal Household Carbon Footprints in China. Nature Clim. Change 7 (1), 75–80. https://doi.org/doi:10.1038/nclimate3165 .

Krausmann, F., Gaugl, B., West, J. and Schandl, H. 2016. The metabolic transition of a planned economy: Material flows in the USSR and the Russian Federation 1900 to 2010. Ecological Economics 124, 76-85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.12.011 .

Schaffartzik, A., Mayer, A., Eisenmenger, N., Krausmann, F. 2016. Global patterns of metal extractivism, 1950–2010: Providing the bones for the industrial society's skeleton. Ecological Economics 122, 101-110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.12.007 .

Haas, W., Krausmann, F., Wiedenhofer, D., Heinz, M. 2015. How circular is the global economy? An assessment of material flows, waste production and recycling in the EU and the world in 2005. Journal of Industrial Ecology 19 (5), 765-777. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12244 .


Other publications

Schaffartzik, A., Wiedenhofer, D., 2018. Linking society and nature: material flows and the resource nexus, in: Bleischwitz, R., Hoff, H., Spataru, C., van der Voet, E., VanDeveer, S.D. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Resource Nexus. Routledge, Oxon, pp. 79–92.

Krausmann F., Fischer-Kowalski, M. 2017. Transitions socio-métaboliques globales. In: Allaire, Gilles, and Benoit Daviron (eds.). Transformations agricoles et agroalimentaires: entre écologie et capitalisme. Quae, pp. 23-40.

Krausmann, F. 2017. Social Metabolism. In: Clive L. Spash (editor), The Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics: Nature and Society. Abingdon, Routledge, pp.108-118.

Krausmann, F., Schaffartzik, A., Mayer, A., Eisenmenger, N., Gingrich, S., Haberl, H., Fischer-Kowalski, M. 2016. Long-Term Trends in Global Material and Energy Use. In: Social Ecology: Society-Nature Relations Across Time And Space. Haberl, H., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Krausmann, F., Winiwarter, V. (editors), Human-Environment Interactions, Springer, Cham, pp. 199-216.

Mayer, A., Schaffartzik, A., Krausmann, F., Eisenmenger, N. 2016. More Than the Sum of its Parts: Patterns in Global Material Flows. In: Social Ecology: Society-Nature Relations Across Time And Space. Haberl, H., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Krausmann, F., Winiwarter, V. (editors), Human-Environment Interactions, Springer, Cham, pp. 217-237.

Haas, W., Heinz, M., Krausmann, F., Wiedenhofer, D. 2016. How Circular is the Global Economy? A Socio-Metabolic Analysis. In: Social Ecology: Society-Nature Relations Across Time And Space. Haberl, H., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Krausmann, F., Winiwarter, V. (editors), Human-Environment Interactions, Springer, Cham, pp. 259-277.