Material Flow Analysis
March 28, 2024
Jooyoung Park
Resource accounting is at the heart
• Sustainable Engineering
– It is about designing and operating systems in such a
way that resources are used at a rate that does not
compromise the natural environment and its ability to
be used by future generations to meet their own
needs
• Industrial Ecology
– It examines the physical dimensions of human
production and consumption activities to understand
their environmental impacts in a holistic way
Source: © 1994 Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com Material World
Global use of materials in the 20th C
Source: European Commission, 2021. Raw Material Scoreboard
OECD, 2018. Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060
Circle Economy, 2022. Circularity Gap Report
Two implications of resource use
Resource scarcity and security
Source: EU JRC, Raw Material Information System
Resource and impact decoupling
Two main objectives of MFA
• Dematerialization
– Increase of resource efficiency (factor 4/10)
– Such goal has been adopted by international
organizations and national governments (e.g., UN,
WBCSD, OECD, Scandinavian countries, EU)
• Detoxification
– Mitigation of the release of critical substances to
the environment by pollution reduction
– Relates to any specific environmental impact
What useful management questions
can be addressed by
material/energy flow analysis?
A question
“Is a complete transition
from a fossil fuel based energy systems
to a system of renewable energy possible?”
– Hydrogen economy based on renewable energy
– 80% PV solar, 15% wind, and 5% other renewables
– Hydrogen & electricity as only energy carriers
Source: Kleijn and van der Voet 2010
Some results
• Energy collection (thin-film PV solar, wind)
– 10,000 Gg of Cd is needed vs. 600 Gg of reserve
– 11,000 Gg of Te is needed vs. 20 Gg of reserve
– 4,800 Gg of In is needed vs. 2.6 Gg of reserve
– x1800 Neodymium of 2008 production is needed
• Hydrogen production & transmission
– Pt (catalysts for electrolysis) constraints
– Stainless steel pipelines may demand Ni of about 45
times the current annual mine production and for Cr
of about 5,500 times.
Source: Kleijn and van der Voet 2010
How efficient are we in using
phosphorus and/or food?
Source: Cordell et al. 2009
Unit: Mton/yr
Food loss and waste, 2009
1.3 billion tons (32% of food production)
1.5 quadrillion kcal (24% of total calories)
Questions about plastics
• To what extent are we recovering value out of
the plastic waste – in Korea or globally?
• To what extent can the separate collection of
PET bottles contribute to reduction of virgin
plastic consumption through bottle-to-bottle
recycling?
• How much carbon emissions can be avoided if
we adopt multi-use packaging for food
delivery to replace single-use plastic packaging?
Cumulative plastic flows in Korea,
1982-2020
Source: Park et al. 2023
How much carbon emitted in Korea
is associated with its export?
“Embedded/hidden” resource use
1,672 g
Inputs
DRAM Microchip
2g
Source: E. Williams
Product
et al., Env. Sci.
Tech., 36, 55045510, 2002
132 L Water
per cup
(125 mL)
Carbon emissions embodied in trade
Source: Davis and Caldeira, 2010.
Energy savings through reuse
Source: Cooper and Gutowski, 2017.
To what extent can we reduce carbon
emissions through resource efficiency?
Decarbonization effect of
circular economy
Source: Pauliuk and Heeren, 2020
Global cumulative and annual 2050 potential emission
reductions of material efficiency strategies
Source:
Pauliuk et al. 2021
Spatially-explicit MFA
for building stock estimation
Source: Harberl et al. 2021; Dominik Weidenhofer
To what extent are we decouple
resource consumption from
economic development?
Socio-economic metabolism
Source: Haas et al. 2015
Economy-wide MFA (EW-MFA)
• Characterize overall
characterization of the metabolic
performance of economies
• Understand the volume,
structure, and quality of the
throughput and to assess the
status and trend with regard to
sustainability
• Support policy debate on
goals/targets on resource
productivity and efficiency
EW-MFA framework
Source: Bringezu et al. Journal of Industrial Ecology 7(2), 2003
Material footprint
Source: Eurostat, 2018; materialflows.net
Mining and purification of zinc:
hidden flows
Impure zinc
Zinc ore
plus
waste rock
Zinc ore
Mass ratio: 50
18
Refined zinc
2
1
Source: Thomas Graedel
Use of the indicators
• What can measure the material use of the
production system?
• What can measure a generic environmental
pressure associated with the overall turnover of
material exchange?
• Which represents the apparent consumption?
• What represents the physical growth of an
economy?
– Future waste generation
– Expansion of the built-up area at the expense of land
EW-MFA in the EU
EU’s CE Monitoring Framework
Exercise
• Explore the results of EW-MFA of a country of
your interest:
http://www.materialflows.net/visualisationcentre/country-profiles/
– Analyze the pattern of domestic extraction, trade,
consumption, and productivity. Is there a gap between
DMC vs. RMC? Why?
– How would you evaluate the level of material
consumption and productivity of the selected country,
compared to other countries, and compared to some
targets in (K-)SDGs?
Assignment #1, due April 10
• Review a study that adopted material flow
analysis to address a resource management
question of your interest
– What is the objective of material flow analysis?
What are the questions to be addressed?
– What type of data were used? What were the
sources of data?
– What were the findings? What do you think the
limitations of the study are?