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Understanding the Role of Material Stock Patterns for the Transformation to a Sustainable Society

Objective

Sustainability transformations imply fundamental changes in the societal use of biophysical resources. Current socioeconomic metabolism research traces flows of energy, materials or substances to capture resource use: input of raw materials or energy, their fate in production and consumption, and the discharge of wastes and emissions. This approach has yielded important insights into eco-efficiency and long-term drivers of resource use. But due to its focus on flows, socio-metabolic research has not yet incorporated material stocks or their services, thereby not fully realizing its analytic potential. MAT_STOCKS addresses this gap by developing a consistent typology, indicators and databases of material stocks and their services, building upon economy-wide material flow analysis. It will create a comprehensive, global, national-level, validated material stocks and services database as well as maps of material stocks from remote-sensing data. This will allow analyzing the stock/flow/service nexus and underpin highly innovative indicators of eco-efficiency overcoming limitations of current approaches which mainly relate resource use or emissions to population and GDP. New insights on stock/flow/service relations, the relevance of spatial patterns and options for decoupling will be used to create a dynamic model to assess option spaces for transformations towards sustainable metabolism. MAT_STOCKS will identify barriers and leverage points for future sustainability transformations and the SDGs, and elucidate their socio-ecological and political implications. Our preliminary analyses suggest that unravelling the stock/flow/service nexus provides a crucial missing link in socio-metabolic research because it explains why, how and where patterns of material and energy use change or remain locked-in. Thereby, important analytical insights will be introduced into the largely normative and local discourses on the transformation towards a sustainable society.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2016-ADG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITAET FUER BODENKULTUR WIEN
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 954 311,00
Address
GREGOR MENDEL STRASSE 33
1180 Wien
Austria

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Region
Ostösterreich Wien Wien
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 954 311,06

Beneficiaries (2)

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