Materials Accounting and Environmental Management in Municipalities

For municipalities to fulfil their role in a nation's work for a healthy environment, and ultimately for sustainability, there is a need for better information about the pressures society puts on the environment, as well as about the underlying causes of these pressures. At present, information about society's pressure on the environment is most often provided by inventories of emissions of different pollutants. In this paper, which takes its point of departure in Sweden, it is argued that such an approach is too narrow. Regional material flow analysis (MFA) is presented as an alternative to emissions inventories. The paper ends with a thorough discussion on the role of materials accounting (incorporating MFA) in municipal environmental management. It is suggested that an early application of this "tool" can promote a change of environmental management towards regional materials management, as a means for reaching sustainability, and further into regional environmental management.