Download Material Flow Accounting, an Efficient Instrument in Analyzing The

Material Flow Accounting, an Efficient Instrument in Analyzing The
“Economy - Environment” Relationship
Phd. Constantin Mîndricelu
Phd. Candidate Dana Martinov
Phd. Candidate Diana Enache
For the present economic politics and strategies, a rational use of
natural resources has become an important problem for the evolution of
the actual economic and social systems under the influence of lasting
development.
The implications of this problem for the future of mankind were
noticed beginning with early 1970’s. Then, during the Club of Rome,
there was discussed the need for reconsidering some models for the
development of socio-economic systems, in the sense of adapting them to
a concept of lasting development. Under these circumstances, the term of
‘’ecological capital of the planet’’ imposes as a defining element in
underlying projects of economic and social development. Later, the
Brudtland Report (UNCED, 1987) proposes a model for analyzing the
relationship among various aspects of social and economic development
in relation to the natural capital. For authors like Pearce and Turner
(1990), the notion of natural capital generally stands for the material
support in the development of socio-economic systems. These, as well as
other important contributions in identifying global environmental
problems, lead to a new concept regarding the phenomenon of lasting
development after 1990. In the concept of lasting development, the
natural capital is recognized as an essential element in economic growth,
especially through the ‘’man made capital’’ which has been long
considered as the only condition, necessary and sufficient in any
economic activity.
Of course that the lasting development cannot be reduced only to
realizing a macroeconomic balance between the social benefits of
economic activities and the environmental costs implied. Actually, the
environmental costs should also quantify a series of consequences, which
seem to be unimportant, or which are usually ignored, and that result
from the pressure on environment caused by the use of natural resources.
For example, even the apparently simple extraction of mineral resources
generates a pressure on environment which, in the longer or shorter term
can have as a consequence a severe reduction of natural capital’s capacity
of supplying. This phenomenon can be regarded from a double
perspective. On the one hand, the exploitation of these natural
environment’ resources obviously leads to a diminishing of planet’s
reserves, both from a quantitative and qualitative point of view ( a
decrease of the services which can be offered by the ecosystems). This
way, the possibility of lasting economic development is seriously
questioned. On the other hand, the exploitation of these natural resources
in the course of industrial processes leads to the pollution and release of
residues which affect the ecological balance of the planet.