From material flow analysis to material flow management Part II: the role of structural agent analysis |
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Institution: | 1. Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth & Environment, University of Leeds, LS5 9JT Leeds, UK;2. Technology and Society Laboratory, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, CH-8600 Duebendorf, Switzerland;3. Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany;4. Helmholtz-Institute Ulm for Electrochemical Energy Storage, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081 Ulm, Germany |
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Abstract: | This paper presents a heuristic for supporting the transition from material flow analysis to material flow management. The heuristic combines material flow analysis with a newly developed method, structural agent analysis (SAA). The latter is based on Giddens structuration theory and provides a basis for understanding the social structures restricting or enabling strategies for managing material flows. We consider the specific advantages of SAA to be that it does the following: (i) it considers the interaction and dynamics of social structure and human agency and, thus, allows for including the role of structural factors such as culture in the analysis; (ii) it provides a cross-level approach allowing the study of interferences among agent groups; and (iii) it considers the different time scales of change of social structures constraining the implementation of options for improving material flows. |
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