The Energetic Metabolism of Societies Part I: Accounting Concepts

Based upon the currently emerging international consensus on how to account for the materials ows of industrialized countries, this article proposes methods to account for the energetic metabolism of societies. It argues that, to fully exploit the potential of the metabolism approach in the context of sustainable development, both energetic and material aspects of societal metabolism have to be taken into account. The ar ticle proposes concepts to empirically describe energy input, internal energy transformations, and energy utilization of societies by extending commonly used notions of energy statistics in a way that is compatible with current methods of materials ow analysis. Whereas energy statistics include only the energy used in technical devices for providing heat, light, mechanical work, and data processing, an accounting system for the energetic metabolism of societies should also consider ows of nutritional energy for both livestock and humans. Moreover, in assessing the energy input of a society, all inputs of energy-rich materials (and immaterial forms of energy such as electricity and light) that cross the boundary into the biophysical structures of society should be taken into consideration, regardless of the purpose for which they are eventually used. As a consequence, an energetic metabolism accounting system treats all biomass as energy input, instead of considering only the biomass used for technical energy generation, as energy statistics do. Par t II in this set of articles will apply these concepts to different modes of societal organization and explore the signi cance of energetic metabolism for sustainable development. In particular, it will explore the signi cance for policies that aim at increasing the contribution of renewable energy, especially biomass.