Materials Count The Case for Material Flows Analysis (2004) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-8
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Material flows data have informed national security, industrial, and public policy decision makers for decades. For national security purposes it is important to recognize that the United States currently imports more than half its use of dozens of commodities.
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As with financial accounts, material flows accounts include inputs, outputs, and accumulations in stocks and could, if implemented, become critical for planning and decision making. Because of the potential of material flows accounting for public policy making, the National Research Council was commissioned by the Department of Energy, U.S.
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As with financial accounts, which are used to construct economic input-output tables and provide information on economic linkages throughout the economy, material flows accounts may be used to construct physical input-output tables that describe material linkages. Material flows databases and analyses are already well established in a variety of U.S.
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The committee further concludes that these inadequacies impede the development of sound public policy and business decisions. The committee recommends that a national-level effort be initiated to identify and fill significant data gaps that presently impede the development of effective material flows accounts.
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The committee recommends that relevant government agencies support research related to material flows accounting. IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY A successful implementation strategy for material flows accounting will be the key to its effective use in public policy making.
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A successful implementation strategy for material flows accounting will be the key to its effective use in public policy making. The committee concludes that the present level of data collection and analysis must be maintained as an essential foundation for initial development of structured materialflows accounts.
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The strategy for successful implementation of material flows accounts is important to ensure downstream successes in using them. By using a partnership approach, the accounts and their uses would be enhanced, and through this enhancement, linkages with other databases on the economy, the environment, and social and cultural information could lead to the type of holistic public policy making necessary for a progressively more complex society.
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Ultimately, the accounts and analyses using them can be coupled with economic, quaTity-of-life, and environmental information to give integrated-impact input on public policy. Much of the progress in this arena will stem from ongoing research, which will run concurrently with the development of material flows accounts.
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