Proposal for a new compilation system for metal ores in economy wide material flow accounting

Abstract

The authors of this article propose a major revision of the processes used for assembling the metal ores component of economy wide material flow accounts (EW‐MFA). The case for doing this is built by describing in detail important shortcomings of current metal ores reporting systems, introducing the key features of the revised system being proposed, and then illustrating the way in which the new system both solves old shortcomings and adds important new capacities. The new capacities added are of particular interest with regard to organizing the data required for a range of practical resource and environmental monitoring and management tasks, at national and smaller scale. The various components of the case for change are explained largely using illustrative examples. The direct motivations behind this work are twofold. First, the proposed system will improve the accuracy and fitness for current uses of the metal ores accounts being assembled. Second, and more importantly, the additional capabilities of the revised system as a resource and environmental management tool will make the process of assembling EW‐MFA accounts more clearly relevant to the concerns of developing countries, which are increasingly being prevailed upon to compile these accounts. In addition to the direct benefits of improved resources and environmental management that should be enabled by the revised system, it is expected that expanding the utility derived from the EW‐MFA process will provide a stronger incentive for its institutionalization and maintenance by individual nations.

An open database on global coal and metal mine production

“…The relevance of the collected variables and relations among these has been derived from the material flow accounting (MFA) framework proposed by West et al . 11 and recommended in UNEP’s Manual on Economy Wide Material Flow Accounting 10 , in order to be consistent with the national-level accounting of mine production. However, to adapt the framework to the mine-specific level, some changes were introduced.…”

“…A standardised accounting framework for production data of individual mines, including compilation worksheets and reporting questionnaires for national statistical offices (NSOs), has been introduced by the UNEP in 2021 10 , based on the work of West et al . 11 . However, such official data compilation will not result in data about past production, and it will take many years, until a large number of NSOs have implemented and published such data collections and records in a comprehensive manner.…”

“…However, to adapt the framework to the mine-specific level, some changes were introduced. The most notable differences are that in our accounting framework for mining data, (a) data is recorded by mine and not by "ore stream" (one mine can have several "ore streams" with different ore characteristics, see West et al 11 for details), and that (b) values for run-of-mine (ROM), valuable content (commodities), and waste have been separated into three different tables in order to preclude any double entry of data points. The reason for (b) is that even (2023) 10:52 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-01965-y www.nature.com/scientificdata www.nature.com/scientificdata/ though data on extracted material, contained commodities and generated waste could generally be collected and accounted together in one table, it is usually reported in different levels of detail, e.g.…”

Winners of the 2020 Graedel prizes: The Journal of Industrial Ecology best paper prizes

“…Two further articles relating to life cycle assessment were a guide to conducting assessments of emerging technologies (Bergerson et al, 2020), and a method of improved data mining for life cycle inventories in chemical manufacturing (Meyer et al, 2020). The remaining two nominated papers proposed a revision to the representation of metal ores in economy wide material flow accounts (West et al., 2020), and projected the future needs for natural sands in low‐carbon infrastructure (Ioannidou et al., 2020).…”

“…Two further articles relating to life cycle assessment were a guide to conducting assessments of emerging technologies (Bergerson et al, 2020), and a method of improved data mining for life cycle inventories in chemical manufacturing (Meyer et al, 2020). The remaining two nominated papers proposed a revision to the representation of metal ores in economy wide material flow accounts (West et al, 2020), and projected the future needs for natural sands in low-carbon infrastructure (Ioannidou et al, 2020).The committee awarded the 2020 Senior Best Paper prize to the following two articles:• Shahana Althaf, Callie Babbitt (Figure 1) and Roger Chen for their publication on "The evolution of consumer electronic waste in the United States." Althaf is with the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at…”