Title: Material flow analysis, TMR and the MIPS concept: a contribution to the development of indicators for measuring changes in consumption and production patterns

Authors: J.H. Spangenberg, F. Hinterberger, S. Moll, H. Schutz

Addresses: Department for Material Flows and Structural Change, Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment Energy, Doppersberg 19, D 42103 Wuppertal, Germany. ' Department for Material Flows and Structural Change, Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment Energy, Doppersberg 19, D 42103 Wuppertal, Germany. ' Department for Material Flows and Structural Change, Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment Energy, Doppersberg 19, D 42103 Wuppertal, Germany. ' Department for Material Flows and Structural Change, Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment Energy, Doppersberg 19, D 42103 Wuppertal, Germany

Abstract: It is not the scarcity of resources that constitutes environmental problems, but their use, the physical throughput of our economies. Material flows are a proxy for the totality of the unspecific environmental risks from human activities. As a strategic goal, an increase of the life-cycle-wide resource productivity by a factor 10 is suggested, including the materials bought and sold and the not-valued materials: we have to take into account the product itself and its ||ecological rucksack||. Material flows are best measured at the input side of the economy, where their number as well as the number of entry gates is limited. Thus here regulation and economic incentives can work more efficiently and less bureaucratically than today. The material intensity of products and services can be expressed as MIPS, the material input per unit of service, and as TMR, the total material requirement on the macro level, an important element in physical input–output tables.

Keywords: ecological rucksack, factor 10, material flows, MIPS, TMR, unspecific environmental risk.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSD.1999.004339

International Journal of Sustainable Development, 1999 Vol.2 No.4, pp.491 - 505

Published online: 10 May 2004 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article