Many of today’s large societal challenges, such as climate change mitigation, resource security, urbanisation and migration require a fundamental transformation of the way we use natural resources. However, our understanding of the stocks and flows of materials and energy (the physical economy) is highly fragmented and involves significant knowledge gaps. The MinFuture project developed a framework aimed at providing guidance on how to perform more systematic monitoring of the physical economy, as well as steps helping to implement such a system. The MinFuture Policy Brief is available for download.

Robust strategies for sustainable resource management depend on a solid understanding of the physical economy – the anthropogenic stocks and flows of matter and energy. MinFuture provides a framework for the description and monitoring of the physical economy using Material Flow Analysis (MFA). It distinguishes and visualises seven components, which are organised in a hierarchical structure (pyramid). This factsheet presents the framework and summarizes the project results.

The MinFuture workshop "Enhancing data robustness on global level" served to present and test the MinFuture approach of placing statistical data in a system context so that global information flows on mineral raw material become less fragmented and provide a more complete, comprehensive and realistic picture. The MinFuture Workshop Synthesis Brief is available for download.