Materials Count The Case for Material Flows Analysis (2004) / Chapter Skim
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8 Implementation Strategy
8 Implementation Strategy
Pages 93-102
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From page 93... ...
The committee notes that a formidable amount of work will be required in designing a robust system of material flows accounts, to whatever extent eventually justified a notion reinforced by the European Union (Eurostat, 2001~. Regardless of scale, intensive work will be involved in pulling distributed material flows databases together into a common system of prioritized accounts of quality data that will lead to accuracy in derived indicators and analyses.
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From page 94... ...
is to develop and maintain a common database system that will provide material flows information, which can be integrated into analyses of physical and economic systems, thereby permitting more robust public policy decision-making. Related to the mission, organizational goals would focus on what specifically is anticipated from establishing and using the system of material flows accounts.
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From page 95... ...
IDENTIFYING AND SELECTING AN ADVISORY COMMITTEE A multidisciplinary advisory committee of expert partners should initially specify data needs for targeted materials reflective of cost-benefit trade-offs, including integration, structuring accounts to address these needs, and developing a protocol for creation, prioritization, and population of accounts. After the initial work has been accomplished, the advisory committee would then guide successive steps aimed at achieving maturity of the system; coordinate the data input to the system by various stakeholders; and coordinate the research agenda to improve the system of accounts and linkages to other databases.
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From page 96... ...
Elements of such a protocol include data quality, transparency, and formatting to ensure access. PRIORITIZING MATERIAL FLOWS ACCOUNTS Not all materials in a specified system have to be tracked for sound public policy making; rather, reflective of practical and economic considerations, successful implementation would require that selected material flows accounts be structured and populated according to a protocol.
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From page 97... ...
The vision would focus on emerging issue-oriented studies for supplementing the material flows databases, thereby filling the important gaps; completing the accounts; and developing standards for the reliability and quality of data as well as appropriate qualitative descriptions and quantitative limits for the data. SUPPORTING ONGOING ACTIVITIES As mentioned above and in Chapter 5, a number of separate databases are available in the United States from which substantial material flows data can be obtained.
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From page 98... ...
An advisory committee should assist the administration of the organization in defining, organizing, and prioritizing accounts. A number of options may be pursued in establishing and funding the material flows accounting organization, but it should be founded on a partnership-based consortium of industry, government, academia, and other committed stakeholders.
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From page 99... ...
The establishing action must also mandate a multiple-constituency advisory committee, comprised of a core team of experts, to ensure that an effective partnership is used in resolving complex issues as work is pursued. This scenario would be relatively easy to mandate, perhaps the most cost-effective scenario, but the committee perceives that it would present a challenge to establishing an effective partnership.
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From page 100... ...
This approach would give more decision-making authority relative to material flows accounting to the independent organization, which must be responsive to the multiple-constituency advisory committee, thereby better ensuring an effective partnership effort. For cost savings the coordinating agency would coordinate organizational activities and facilitate the organization's functionality; however, formal decision making and its outcomes, as they impact other agencies, would be done by the organization itself.
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From page 101... ...
agencies that currently perform material flows data collection and analysis. The material flows accounting organization must be comprised of a broad core team of interdisciplinary experts, augmenting the advisory committee and government partners.
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From page 102... ...
02 MATERIALS COUNT The strategy for successful implementation of material flows accounts is important to ensure success in using them. By employing a partnership approach through an independent organization, the accounts and their uses would be enhanced, and through this enhancement, linkages with other databases on the economy, the environment, and social status could lead to the type of holistic public policy making necessary for a progressively more complex society.
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