Material flow management (MFM) is an economic focused method of analysis and reformation of goods production and subsequent waste through the lens of material flows, incorporating themes of

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

and the theory of a

circular economy A circular economy (also referred to as circularity or CE) is a model of resource Production (economics), production and Resource consumption, consumption in any economy that involves sharing, leasing, Reuse, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and ...

. It is used in social, medical, and urban contexts. However, MFM has grown in the field of

industrial ecology Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resource ...

, combining both technical and economic approaches to minimize waste that impacts economic prosperity and the environment. It has been heavily utilized by the country of Germany, but it has been applied to the industries of various other countries. The material flow management process utilizes the

Sankey diagram Sankey diagrams are a data visualisation technique or flow diagram that emphasizes flow/movement/change from one state to another or one time to another, in which the width of the arrows is proportional to the flow rate of the depicted extensiv ...

, and echoes the circular economy model, while being represented in media environments as a business model which may help lower the costs of production and waste.

Context

Material flow management began as a largely academic discourse, eventually becoming an actual tool implemented by both countries and industries. The first clear suggestion of material flow management was that of Robert A. Frosch and Nicholas E. Gallopoulos. Published in the '' Scientific American Journal'' in 1989, Frosch and Gallopoulos introduced and recommended the optimization of waste from industrial processes to then be reused for another. While lacking in detail, the analysis of material flow management continued to develop years later, with Robert Socolow and Valerie Thomas beginning to support findings with data, publishing their work in the '' Journal of Industrial Ecology'' in 1997. Material flow management was established as a policy at the 1992 Rio De Janeiro United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), or UN "

Earth Summit The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio de Janeiro Conference or the Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92, Cúpula da Terra), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 ...

" Conference. The event was later credited as an advancement towards three UN treaties:

Framework Convention on Climate Change The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the UN process for negotiating an agreement to limit dangerous climate change. It is an international treaty among countries to combat "dangerous Global warming, human interf ...

, the

Convention on Biological Diversity The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty. The Convention has three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity (or biodiversity); the sustainable use of its ...

, and the

Convention to Combat Desertification The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa (UNCCD) is a Convention to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought through ...

. Material flow management has been credited as a factor in environmental

and

environmental management Environmental resource management or environmental management is the management of the interaction and impact of human societies on the environment. It is not, as the phrase might suggest, the management of the environment itself. Environment ...

, given its focus on responsible management of ecosystems and ecosystem services for current use, and that of future generations.

Uses and applications

One of the terms used in academic and practical discussions of material flow management is "

material flow analysis Material flow analysis (MFA), also referred to as substance flow analysis (SFA), is an analytical method to quantify flows and stocks of materials or substances in a well-defined system. MFA is an important tool to study the bio-physical aspects of ...

" (MFA), which is identified as part of the MFM process. MFA is the more target-oriented analysis of substance flow within a system of production, especially within a company. Material flow analysis is the responsibility of both organized governments and industries. While policies produced by governmental bodies create a framework, the actual design and implementation are done by industries. There are several stakeholders involved in these processes. Material flow management assessment began to take country- and government-focused approaches following a 1997 publication by the World Resources Institute for the Netherlands and Germany. It displayed the total flow, soon adjusted to divide overall flows into its major constituents. In 2002, the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...

released the report, ''Beyond RCRA: Waste and Materials Management in the Year 2020'', finding that it is time for society to shift from a waste management-focused environmental plan to a material management-focused plan. Another assessment was conducted by Taylor Searcy in 2017, revitalizing Fiji’s sustainable sea transportation industry to improve socio-economic and environmental impacts. A 2019 study of the material flow in Brazil's mortar and concrete supply chain concluded that in terms of material use efficiency, the ratio of product to material consumption results in a low score, with the most outstanding inefficient processes being quarry waste and building waste at extraction and construction sites.

Government policies

The United States began seriously incorporating material flow management in its environmental policies with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. This gave the government the ability the control hazardous waste produced by all steps of production. Eventually, Congress helped strengthen the RCRA with the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984, incorporating more preventative policies. In 2006, Israel released a Sustainable Solid Waste Management Plan, outlining green goals and priorities for the country's waste system, including economic tools of execution. Policies for household recycling and waste collection separation were then solidified with the 2010 Recycling Action Plan. Korea has also introduced various policies that have executed MFM, specifically in regard to food waste. A 2005 ban on putting untreated food in landfills was followed by a 2012 ban on ocean dumping. In addition to these environmental initiatives, the country combined the economic and social aspects of MFM using food waste agreements with vital economic sectors, as well as public awareness campaigns. JIE Sankey V5 Fig1

Sankey diagram

The material flow management process utilizes the

, and echoes the circular economy model, while being represented in media environments as a business model which may help lower the costs of production and waste. An important tool for MFM is the Sankey diagram. It was developed by Irish engineer Riall Sankey to analyze the efficiency of steam engines and has since become a tool in industrial engineering and science. Sankey diagrams are a visual representation of industrial ecology. While they were mostly used in historical contexts, they are useful for assessing ecological impacts. Engineering the Circular Economy Lifecycle by Rebecca Meldrum wiki-2

Circular economy

is a model of resource

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

and

consumption Consumption may refer to: * Eating *Resource consumption *Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically known as consumption * Consumer (food chain), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms * Consumption (economics), the purchasing of n ...

in any economy that involves sharing,

leasing A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

, reusing,

repairing The technical meaning of maintenance involves functional checks, servicing, repairing or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, building infrastructure and supporting utilities in industrial, business, and residential installat ...

, refurbishing, and

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the propert ...

existing materials and products. The circular economy, an economic system still in the development process (not yet widely adopted), intends to model itself after the material flow management and

energy models Energy () is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat and light. Energy is a conserved quantity—the law of conservation of energy sta ...

in biological systems. Focusing on society-wide benefits, it designs a system without waste or pollution and intends to keep products and materials in the system for as long as possible. Applications of the circular economy in the European Union have produced evidence of practicality, estimating that implementation in agricultural, chemical, and construction sectors could reduce up to 7.5 billion tonnes of CO₂e globally.

Media representation

In today's studies on the effectiveness of MFM for improving productivity, an analysis of its implementation has been debated with its correlation to government roles in environmental management. With the large spike in environmental disaster concepts regarding the depletion of resources by human activity, MFM could be interpreted as a promoter of the circular economy and an analysis of the necessity of such. In this light, MFM is being utilized as a business strategy that would be meant to optimize vertical integration of manufacturing. Companies focusing on the economics behind MFM, rather than the subject of the environmental crisis, may take note of how MFM lowers the cost of materials by creating an efficient approach to sustainability. Material flow management as a business model may appear to some to promote sustainability in the long run. However, its critics still find these two terms – MFM and sustainability – to be at a crossroads despite the vertical integration model of manufacturing showing agreement in their processes.

References

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Industrial ecology Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resource ...

, - !Tools , *

Agent-based model An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational model for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents (both individual or collective entities such as organizations or groups) in order to understand the behavior of a system and ...

Cost–benefit analysis Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), sometimes also called benefit–cost analysis, is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. It is used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits ...

DPSIR DPSIR (drivers, pressures, state, impact, and response model of intervention) is a causal framework used to describe the interactions between society and the environment. It seeks to analyze and assess environmental problems by bringing together va ...

Ecolabel Ecolabels (also "eco-Labels") and Green Stickers are labeling systems for food and consumer products. The use of ecolabels is voluntary, whereas green stickers are mandated by law; for example, in North America major appliances and automobiles us ...

Ecological footprint The ecological footprint measures human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people and their economies. It tracks human demand on nature through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biolo ...

Environmental full-cost accounting Environmental full-cost accounting (EFCA) is a method of cost accounting that traces direct costs and allocates indirect costs by collecting and presenting information about the possible environmental costs and benefits or advantagesin short, abo ...

Environmental impact assessment Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental impact, environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the te ...

Environmental management system An environmental management system (EMS) is "a system which integrates policy, procedures and processes for training of personnel, monitoring, summarizing, and reporting of specialized environmental performance information to internal and external ...

* EIO-LCA *

Input–output model In economics, an input–output model is a quantitative economic model that represents the interdependencies between different sectors of a national economy or different regional economies.Thijs Ten Raa, Input–Output Economics: Theory and App ...

* Integrated chain management *

ISO 14000 The ISO 14000 family is a set of international standards for environment management systems. It was developed in March 1996 by International Organization for Standardization. The goal of these standards is to help organizations (a) minimize how t ...

Life-cycle assessment Life cycle assessment (LCA), also known as life cycle analysis, is a methodology for assessing the impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case of a manufact ...

Life-cycle cost analysis Life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is an economic analysis tool to determine the most cost-effective option to purchase, run, sustain or dispose of an object or process. The method is popular in helping managers determine economic sustainability by ...

Material flow analysis Material flow analysis (MFA), also referred to as substance flow analysis (SFA), is an analytical method to quantify flows and stocks of materials or substances in a well-defined system. MFA is an important tool to study the bio-physical aspects of ...

* MET Matrix *

Stakeholder analysis Stakeholder analysis in conflict resolution, business administration, Environmental health, environmental health sciences decision making, industrial ecology, public administration, and project management is the process of assessing a system and po ...

, - !Concepts , *

Circular economy A circular economy (also referred to as circularity or CE) is a model of resource Production (economics), production and Resource consumption, consumption in any economy that involves sharing, leasing, Reuse, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and ...

Cradle-to-cradle design Cradle-to-cradle design (also referred to as 2CC2, C2C, cradle 2 cradle, or regenerative design) is a biomimetic approach to the design of products and systems that models human industry on nature's processes, where materials are viewed as nut ...

* Dematerialization *

Eco-efficiency Eco-efficiency refers to the delivery of goods and services to meet human needs and improve quality of life while progressively reducing their environmental impacts of goods and resource intensity during their life-cycle. Together with consistency ...

* Eco-industrial development *

Eco-industrial park An eco-industrial park (EIP) is an industrial park in which businesses cooperate with each other and with the local community in an attempt to reduce waste and pollution, efficiently share resources (such as information, materials, water, energy, ...

* Ecological modernization *

Efficient energy use Efficient energy use, or energy efficiency, is the process of reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services. There are many technologies and methods available that are more energy efficient than conventional systems. For ...

Exergy Exergy, often referred to as "available energy" or "useful work potential", is a fundamental concept in the field of thermodynamics and engineering. It plays a crucial role in understanding and quantifying the quality of energy within a system and ...

Extended producer responsibility Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a strategy to add all of the estimated environmental costs associated with a product throughout the product life cycle to the market price of that product, contemporarily mainly applied in the field of ...

* Industrial metabolism *

Industrial symbiosis Industrial symbiosis is a subset of industrial ecology. It describes how a network of diverse organizations can foster eco-innovation and long-term culture change, create and share mutually profitable transactions—and improve business and tech ...

Polluter pays principle In environmental law, the polluter pays principle is enacted to make the Party (law), party responsible for producing pollution responsible for paying for the damage done to the natural environment. This principle has also been used to put the cos ...

Precautionary principle The precautionary principle (or precautionary approach) is a broad epistemological, philosophical and legal approach to innovations with potential for causing harm when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. It emphasizes cautio ...

Rebound effect The rebound effect, or rebound phenomenon, is the emergence or re-emergence of symptoms that were either absent or controlled while taking a medication, but appear when that same medication is discontinued or reduced in dosage. In the case of re- ...

Waste hierarchy The waste management hierarchy, waste hierarchy, or "hierarchy of waste management options", is a tool#Non-material usage, tool used in the evaluation of processes that Environmental protection, protect the environment alongside resource consu ...

Waste minimisation Waste minimisation is a set of processes and practices intended to reduce the amount of waste produced. By reducing or eliminating the generation of harmful and persistent wastes, waste minimisation supports efforts to promote a more sustai ...

Waste valorization Waste valorization, beneficial reuse, beneficial use, value recovery or waste reclamation is the process of waste products or Residue (chemistry), residues from an economic process being Valorisation, valorized (given economic value), by reuse or r ...

, - !Related fields , * Cleaner production *

Design for environment Design for the environment (DfE) is a design approach to reduce the overall human health and environmental impact of a product, process or service, where impacts are considered across its life cycle. Different software tools have been developed to ...

* Earth systems engineering and management *

Ecological economics Ecological economics, bioeconomics, ecolonomy, eco-economics, or ecol-econ is both a transdisciplinary and an interdisciplinary field of academic research addressing the interdependence and coevolution of human economy, economies and natural ec ...

* Ecological modernization *

Environmental economics Environmental economics is a sub-field of economics concerned with environmental issues. It has become a widely studied subject due to growing environmental concerns in the twenty-first century. Environmental economics "undertakes theoretical ...

Green chemistry Green chemistry, similar to sustainable chemistry or circular chemistry, is an area of chemistry and chemical engineering focused on the design of products and processes that minimize or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Wh ...

Sustainable development Sustainable development is an approach to growth and Human development (economics), human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.United Nations General ...

Urban ecology Urban ecology is the scientific study of the relation of living organisms with each other and their surroundings in an urban environment. An urban environment refers to environments dominated by high-density residential and commercial building ...

Urban metabolism Urban metabolism (UM) is a model to facilitate the description and analysis of the flows of the materials and energy within cities, such as undertaken in a material flow analysis of a city. It provides researchers with a metaphorical framework to ...

External links

Cadence: Material Flow Analysis in Manufacturing Improves Production and Efficiency

iPoint: Sankey Diagram Software
Materials Industrial ecology Sustainability and environmental management