As humanity faces the complexities of ecological, material, and economic crises, the need to integrate multilevel political, institutional, and industrial ecologies into trajectories of sustainability becomes ever more urgent. Though discourses of net zero, just transition, green recovery, and ‘socio-ecological transformation” have emerged, scholars are challenged to measure and monitor these developments in both integrative and multilevel ways. To this end, societal metabolic analyses (SMA) offer a multidimensional and cross-scale method of understanding and examining sectoral and regional developments through material flows, energetic, and social accounts (Giampietro et al. 2014; Giampietro, Mayumi, and Sorman 2011). SMA define and integrate views of: industrial sectors; workforce capacities; land use patterns; energy use; economic value, and other flows. Such metabolic analyses can provide useful insights into relations between political discourse and practical action, multi-level actors and biophysical flows, policy tools, and coherence toward the ‘greening’ of economies, ‘green recoveries’, net zero, and a more ecologically just world.
Scotland—and other nations—has expressed great ambitions for not only a post-covid ‘green recovery’ (SG 2020) but also a ‘net zero by 2045’with interim targets for 2030 and 2040 with, respectively, 75% and 90% lower emissions than a baseline net zero (SP 2019). Besides noting that these targets must be ensured by Scottish Ministers, there is also little material detail on how these targets will be met (SP 2019).
Using this policy case of Scotland’s ‘net zero by 2045’, we operationalize metabolic analyses to assess the challenge and possible tradeoffs of maintaining stable household and paid-work sectors while transitioning to electricity and other low-carbon energy carriers, while trying to activate greener activities in land use and other industrial sectors. This analysis aims to model a number of different scenarios that include: status quo, net zero, progress to net zero, and degrowth.
Keywords: Societal metabolic analyses, socio-ecological transformation, net zero, green recovery, sustainability.
For a simplified explanation of this project, see here: poster view [1]
For a video presentation of the project see here: Systems@Hutton [2]
For the lightning talk, see here: l [3]ightning talk [3]
Email: jean.boucher@hutton.ac.uk [13]
Staff page: https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/jean-boucher [14]
Links:
[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HeeRIRJuv2Zc-sak8xsikAW9UsvzQScJ/view?usp=sharing
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4YEomRoXI8
[3] https://youtu.be/DZXgbipyQXM
[4] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/projects/MDT-jean-boucher/51140-Boucher-Hutton-Oslo2-202306-21.pdf
[5] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/projects/MDT-jean-boucher/51145-Boucher-Hutton-SMA-June-20230621.pdf
[6] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/projects/MDT-jean-boucher/51153-Boucher-Hutton-SMA-June-20230621.pdf
[7] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/projects/MDT-jean-boucher/51155-Boucher-Hutton-SMA-July-20230629.pdf
[8] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/projects/MDT-jean-boucher/51156-Boucher-Hutton-SMA-July-20230702.pdf
[9] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/projects/MDT-jean-boucher/51158-Boucher-Hutton-SMA-Aug-202308.pdf
[10] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/projects/MDT-jean-boucher/51157-Boucher-Hutton-BIEE-Sept-20230920.pdf
[11] https://ics.hutton.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Boucher-Hutton-Bergen-Octb.pdf
[12] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2019/15/enacted
[13] mailto:jean.boucher@hutton.ac.uk
[14] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/jean-boucher
[15] http://abwww03.hutton.ac.uk/staff/jean-boucher
[16] http://abwww03.hutton.ac.uk/staff/keith-matthews