Material Flow Accounts

The document advocates for the adoption of Material Flow Accounts (MFA) as a tool for managing environmental policy challenges, such as tracking pollutants and prioritizing policy interventions. It describes a pilot MFA database developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) that tracks over 190 commodities across five resource sectors in the U.S. economy, with the ultimate goal of transitioning the compilation of these accounts to the federal government.

• Material Flow Accounts (MFA) systems track materials cycling into the economy and entering the environment throughout a commodity's life cycle to address specific policy challenges, including the tracking of pollutants across environmental media, measuring progress on national environmental quality tools, facilitating communication between Federal offices and the public, and prioritizing policy interventions.
• The World Resources Institute (WRI) has created a pilot MFA database covering more than 190 commodities across five primary resource sectors: agriculture, forestry, minerals, metals, and non-renewable organic materials (such as fossil fuels). This database tracks the entire chain of materials in the U.S. industrial economy, from primary feedstocks like petroleum and salt to processed materials like gasoline and benzene.
• The long-term objective of WRI's MFA activity is to transition the periodic compilation and dissemination of U.S. material flows accounts from civil society to the federal government.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Material Flow Accounts. https://www.wri.org/research/material-flow-accounts

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Material Flow Accounts. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/material-flow-accounts.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Material Flow Accounts |url=https://www.wri.org/research/material-flow-accounts |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendmaterial, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Material Flow Accounts}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/material-flow-accounts}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }