In Search of Substantive Economics: Comparing Today's Two Major Socio-metabolic Approaches to the Economy – MEFA and MuSIASEM

Gerber, Julien‐François; Scheidel, Arnim

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.08.012

Cited by 77 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…We use the flow-fund approach, as proposed by Georgescu-Roegen [32] and developed, adopting the concept of social metabolism, by [9,33]. According to Gerber and Scheidel [34], analysis of social metabolism is fundamental towards substantive economics and the approach by [10,11]-which we undertake in this paper-represents an interdisciplinary development that combines it with other methods such as landscape ecology.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another not yet explored issue, and in line with Scheidel and Gerber's proposal of bridging analysis of social metabolism with needs theory [34], is the one relating agrarian social metabolism with the amount of needs satisfied in different societal contexts: a fully organic system was not only more energy efficient per se, but in that context of a frugal society, it allowed for the full satisfaction of dietary, transportation, and domestic heating needs. Instead, the agro-industrial regime within a consumerist society implies that less societal needs are satisfied from nearby agroecosystems, and therefore the metabolic stress is shifted to other places or to future generations.…”

Section: Remarks For Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Landscape Agroecology. The Dysfunctionalities of Industrial Agriculture and the Loss of the Circular Bioeconomy in the Barcelona Region, 1956–2009

2018

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The paper analyses how between 1956 and 2009 the agrarian metabolism of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR) has become less functional, losing circularity in biomass flows and in relationship to its landscape. We do so by adopting a Multi-Energy Return on Investment (EROI) and flow-fund (MuSIASEM) analyses and the nexus with landscape functional structure. The study of agricultural flows of Final Produce, Biomass Reused and External Inputs is integrated with that of land use, livestock, power capacity, and population changes between 1956 (at the beginning of agrarian industrialization) and 2009 (fully industrialized agriculture). A multi-scale analysis is conducted at the landscape scale (seven counties within the Barcelona metropolitan region) as well as for the functions deployed, within an agroecosystem, by the mutual interactions between its funds (landscape, land-uses, livestock, and farming population). A complex nexus between land, livestock, dietary patterns, and energy needs is shown; we conclude that, from the perspective of the circular bioeconomy the agrarian sector has gone worse hand in hand with the landscape functional structure. Therefore, a novel perspective in landscape agroecology is opened.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Remarks For Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 97%

Landscape Agroecology. The Dysfunctionalities of Industrial Agriculture and the Loss of the Circular Bioeconomy in the Barcelona Region, 1956–2009

2018

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“…This approach was developed by researchers around Mario Giampietro and Kozo Mayumi based on the work of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen 49 . Its proponents argue that since socio-ecological systems are self-organized, their proper analysis requires considering their hierarchically organized structural and functional compartments operating at different spacetime scales 50,51 . MuSIASEM applies the theory of complex hierarchical systems to SMR by integrating information on social, economic and socio-metabolic dimensions at multiple scales.…”

Section: Multi-scale Integrated Analysis Of Societal and Ecosystem Mementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It uses Georgescu-Roegens concept of "funds" which refers to entities such as labor, land or technological capital that provide services to the social system. Funds have to be maintained but are not consumed 51,52 . MuSIASEM studies typically account for energy use, human activity, and value added for the system as a whole and its compartments.…”

Section: Multi-scale Integrated Analysis Of Societal and Ecosystem Mementioning

confidence: 99%

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Contributions of sociometabolic research to sustainability science

et al. 2019

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Recent high-level agreements such as the Paris climate accord or the Sustainable Development Goals aim at mitigating climate change, ecological degradation and biodiversity loss while pursuing social goals such as reducing hunger or poverty. Systemic approaches bridging natural and social sciences are required to support these agendas. The surging human use of biophysical resources (materials, energy) results from the pursuit of social and economic goals, while it also drives global environmental change. Socio-metabolic research links the study of socioeconomic processes with biophysical processes and thus plays a pivotal role for understanding societynature interactions. It includes a broad range of systems science approaches for measuring, analyzing and modelling of biophysical stocks and flows as well as the services they provide to society. Here we outline and systematize major socio-metabolic research traditions that study the biophysical basis of economic activity: urban metabolism, the multi-scale integrated assessment of societal and ecosystem metabolism, biophysical economics, material and energy flow analysis, and environmentally extended input-output analysis. Examples from recent research demonstrate strengths and weaknesses of socio-metabolic research. We discuss future research directions that could also help to enrich related fields.

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Multi-scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism

Giampietro

2023

Studies in Ecological Economics

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MuSIASEM provides a set of new narratives about the economic process that responds to the original challenges of the field of Ecological Economics. These alternative narratives can be used to identify and integrate four aspects of sustainability: (i) feasibility – compatibility with external constraints (processes outside of human control); (ii) viability – compatibility with internal constraints (processes under human control), (iii) desirability – compatibility with the stability of the social bonding (affective interactions in societal practices); (iv) security – the level of openness of the metabolic pattern (the extent of externalization of socio-economic and environmental pressures to other countries and ecosystems through imports). To achieve this result, MuSIASEM uses a complexity frame of reference. Starting out from the principles of bioeconomics of Geoergescu-Roegen, it elaborates the concept of metabolic pattern of social-ecological systems to explore the impredicative relations over the characteristics of structural and functional elements across scales and dimensions. Using relational analysis and integrating three different accounting metrics, the analytical toolkit generates a rich information space describing the impredicative entanglement of different attributes of performance across dimensions and scales. Rather than making predictions, MuSIASEM explores the option space of plausible changes based on a series of “what if” questions. This quantitative accounting framework can be applied in diagnostic mode, to identify critical sustainability issues, and in anticipation mode, to identify implausible policies. MuSIASEM thus provides a flexible decision support for multi-level governance while guaranteeing the transparency of the choices made by the analyst.

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In Search of Substantive Economics: Comparing Today's Two Major Socio-metabolic Approaches to the Economy – MEFA and MuSIASEM

Cited by 77 publications

References 44 publications

Landscape Agroecology. The Dysfunctionalities of Industrial Agriculture and the Loss of the Circular Bioeconomy in the Barcelona Region, 1956–2009

Landscape Agroecology. The Dysfunctionalities of Industrial Agriculture and the Loss of the Circular Bioeconomy in the Barcelona Region, 1956–2009

Contributions of sociometabolic research to sustainability science

Multi-scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism

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