




































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 4 (2): 21-43, July 2021 

THEMATIC ESSAY 

Why Socio-metabolic Studies are Central to Ecological 

Economics 

Simron J Singh1, Simran Talwar2, Megha Shenoy3 

Abstract: Global material extraction has tripled since the 1970s, with more than 
100 billion tonnes of materials entering the world economy each year. Only 8.6% 
of this amount is recycled, while 61% ends up as waste and emissions, the leading 
cause of global warming and large-scale pollution of land, rivers, and oceans. This 
theme paper introduces socio-metabolic research (SMR) and demonstrates its 
relevance to ecological economics scholarship in India. SMR is a research 
framework for studying the biophysical stocks and flows of materials and energy 
associated with societal production and consumption. As one of the core 
approaches in industrial ecology and ecological economics, SMR is widely 
conducted in Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia, and China. In India, it is 
still in its infancy. In this paper, we review pioneering efforts in SMR in India and 
make a case for advancing the field in the subcontinent.  

Key words: Socio-metabolic Research (SMR); Industrial Ecology; Ecological 
Economics; India; Material Flow Analysis (MFA). 

 

                                                        
1 Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave W, Waterloo, ON 
N2L 3G1, Canada; simron.singh@uwaterloo.ca.  

2 Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney Bldg 10, 235 Jones St, 
Ultimo NSW 2007, Australia; simran.talwar@uts.edu.au. 

3  The Valley School, Thatguni Post, Kanakpura Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka – 560082, 
megha.shenoy@thevalleyschool.info.  

Copyright © Singh, Talwar and Shenoy 2021. Released under Creative Commons 

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 

Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v4i2.461  

 

 

 

mailto:simron.singh@uwaterloo.ca
mailto:Simran.Talwar@uts.edu.au
mailto:megha.shenoy@thevalleyschool.info
https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v4i2.461


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [22] 

1. THE GLOBAL RESOURCE CHALLENGE  

At the crux of our environmental crisis is the linear, one-way flow of 
(mostly non-renewable) materials and energy to grow our global economy. 
Despite improvements in technologies, global material extraction has 
tripled, exports quadrupled, and per capita material consumption nearly 
doubled, since the 1970s (UNEP 2016; Schandl et al. 2017). For the first 
time in human history, more than 100 billion tonnes of materials enter the 
global economy every year, of which only about 8% is recycled, creating an 
enormous “circularity gap” (Circle Economy 2020). To add to this 
sustainability conundrum, the 61% that ends up as waste and emissions 
contributes to large-scale land, river, and ocean pollution as well as global 
warming, thus compromising the health of our planet and human well-
being (UNEP 2015; IPCC 2018).  

The third dimension of sustainability is equity. The “costs” and “benefits” 
of current patterns of resource use are unequally distributed across the 
world and between current and future generations (Schaffartzik, Duro, and 
Krausmann 2019; Diffenbaugh and Burke 2019). Industrialized nations, 
with less than a quarter of the world’s population, consume more than 40% 
of the world’s domestic extraction, that is, 17 tonnes of materials and 300 
GJ of energy per capita and year, respectively, as compared to 3–5 tonnes 
and 37–50 GJ in low- to middle-income countries (Krausmann et al. 2016). 
In other words, there are regions of the world or sections of society that 
engage with harmful, exploitative, and dirty industries and hence pay the 
cost of current patterns of resource use while others (mostly rich 
consumers) benefit from them. This distributional aspect of sustainability is 
often discussed in connection with environmental justice (Martinez-Alier et 
al. 2016). 

Humanity’s unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, and the 
resulting pollution, and equity concerns, are central to ecological 
economics, a field of research founded on the premise that the economy is 
a subset of the natural world, and, hence, economic activities must adhere 
to biophysical thresholds (Costanza 1989; Melgar-Melgar and Hall 2020). 
Pioneers of ecological economics have emphasized this message through 
several influential works. For example, Kenneth Boulding (1966) urges 
society to shift from a reckless “cowboy economy” to a frugal “spaceman 
economy”. Georgescu-Roegen (1971) applies the entropy law to the 
economic process, which resonates strongly with Martinez-Alier and 
Schlupmann (1987), who emphasize the use of biophysical metrics, such as 
material and energy flows, as opposed to monetary units, to evaluate 
economic performance. Meadows et al. (1972) warn us of the limits to 
economic growth that relies on the ever-increasing exploitation of limited 



[23] Simron J Singh, Simran Talwar, Megha Shenoy 

resources—this underlies much of Herman Daly’s (1977) work on steady 
state economics. These ground breaking ideas contributed to the vision and 
formal founding of ecological economics in 1989 (Costanza 1989), which 
has evolved to include aspects of well-being, justice, and equity (Costanza et 
al. 2020). 

A transformation to sustainability requires a drastic reduction in material 
throughput to levels compatible with the earth’s biophysical ability to 
supply resources and absorb wastes and emissions. This paper introduces 
socio-metabolic research (SMR) as an approach that quantifies patterns of 
resource use by economies, allowing researchers to identify systemic risks 
and vulnerabilities, social inequalities, and potential for transformation or 
collapse. We describe the theoretical underpinnings, research approaches, 
and applications of SMR, with a focus on India and its potential for the 
sustainability.  

2. SUSTAINABILITY AS A PROBLEM OF THE SOCIETY-
NATURE INTERACTION 

Sustainability problems (some would call them crises) often result from the 
way society interacts with its natural environment. As such, sustainability is 
a social, as much as it is an ecological, challenge. Therefore, we need a 
heuristic and cross-disciplinary model that sufficiently captures the dynamic 
interaction between the biophysical planet and the social world and, in 
doing so, relates social and economic development to environmental 
change. In this respect, the model of the society–nature interaction 
developed by the Vienna school of social ecology is persuasive (Figure 1). 
The starting point in the model is to conceive of “society” not only as a 
group of rational actors or a human population, but as one that also 
includes biophysical elements—livestock, buildings, infrastructure, and 
machines, collectively referred to as “material stocks”—that are deliberately 
created and maintained by a given population for its survival and well-
being. Society reproduces itself biophysically and culturally over time 
through a system of mutual feedback loops and is, thus, a “hybrid” between 
cultural and natural spheres of causation (Fischer-Kowalski and Weisz 
2016).  

 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [24] 

 

Figure 1: Heuristic Model of Society–Nature Interactions (adapted from Fischer-
Kowalski and Weisz 2016) 
Source: Simron J Singh | Illustration support from Lodewijk Luken 

Biophysical reproduction is carried out via a process referred to as “social 
metabolism” (the “natural sphere” in Figure 1). As in biological 
metabolism, a given society organizes material and energy flows through its 
natural environment and by way of trade for its sustenance and 
reproduction. Some material and energy becomes waste (outflows), while 
the rest of the flows are net additions to “stocks”. Stocks provide critical 
societal services such as housing, food, energy, transport, health, and 
education. Stocks, in turn, need to be maintained through flows, creating a 
dynamic feedback loop referred to as the “material stock–flow–service” 
(SFS) nexus (Haberl et al. 2017). The size and composition of resource 
throughput in a socio-economic system characterizes its “metabolic profile” 
and is indicative of the pressure an economy exerts on the environment.  

Just as metabolism influences a person’s body (leading to obesity or 
diabetes), the process of social metabolism alters land and sea (mining, 
urbanization, fishing, and agriculture) and, over time, causes changes in 
ecosystems, the atmosphere, and biogeochemical cycles. Seven of these 



[25] Simron J Singh, Simran Talwar, Megha Shenoy 

earth system pressures4 have been quantified and designated as “planetary 
boundaries”. Of these, four are found to be well outside the safe operating 
space for humans at present—for example, climate change and loss of 
biodiversity are currently causing existential crises (Steffen et al. 2015). The 
cumulative impacts of past and ongoing changes to the natural environment 
have assumed a global proportion. Climate disruptions, sea-level rise, 
hurricanes, and possibly even pandemics are examples of ecosystem 
disservices, against which society needs to protect itself and adapt by 
altering existing patterns of social metabolism.  

Materials and energy such as food, fossils, metals, and minerals that humans 
extract from nature, however, do not always flow on their own. They are 
deliberately mobilized by humans based on values, ideologies of 
development, and expectations in the social world. They are manifested and 
reinforced through institutions, laws, policies, education, cultural norms, the 
economy, and discourse (the “cultural sphere” in Figure 1). As humans 
interact with the natural world, they generate experiences, favourable or 
unfavourable. These feed back over time into the symbolic/cultural sphere; 
existing practices are confirmed, or new meaning and insights about 
environmental risks and uncertainties are generated (for example, through 
the recognition of ecosystem disservices), leading to renewed expectations 
and rules.  

3. SOCIO-METABOLIC RESEARCH AND ITS APPLICATIONS  

SMR studies focus on the biophysical aspects of society–nature interactions 
on different spatial and temporal scales. In other words, SMR offers a 
research framework for systematically studying the stocks and flows of 
materials and energy associated with societal production and consumption. 
As such, SMR has become one of the core systems approaches in scientific 
disciplines such as industrial ecology and ecological economics (Molina and 
Toledo 2014; Haberl et al. 2019). The research encompasses a broad range 
of traditions such as urban metabolism, the multi-scale integrated analysis 
of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM), material and energy 
flow analysis (MEFA), environmentally extended input–output analysis 
(EE–IOA), and related approaches such as life cycle assessment (LCA), the 
ecological footprint and integrated assessment models (IAM) (for an 
excellent review of SMR traditions, see Haberl et al. [2019]). Gerber and 
Scheidel (2018) consider MEFA and MuSIASEM the two major socio-
metabolic approaches that are foundational to ecological economics. While 

                                                        
4  The seven planetary boundaries are climate change, biosphere integrity, land-system 
change, freshwater use, biochemical flows, ocean acidification, and stratospheric ozone 
depletion. 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [26] 

MEFA seeks to establish a mass balance of biophysical stocks and flows 
through socio-economic systems, MuSIASEM draws on the theory of 
complex hierarchical systems to integrate diverse socio-economic and 
metabolic dimensions at multiple scales into its analysis.5  

This paper focuses on material flow analysis (MFA), an accounting method 
that describes (in quantitative terms) the physical dimensions of an 
economy: what quantity and quality of materials (including energy carriers) 
are domestically produced, imported, transformed, used, and discarded? 
MFA is one of the core methodologies that quantifies resource use at the 
global, national, or sub-national scales and indicates anthropogenic 
pressures on the environment (Dittrich, Giljum, Lutter, and Polszin 2012; 
IGEP 2013; Mutha, Patel, and Premnath 2006; Singh et al. 2012). 
Embedded in the System of Environmental–Economic Accounts (SEEA) 
(Eurostat 2018), MFA offers a consistent compilation of all resources 
entering the socio-economic system, changes in biophysical stocks within 
the system, outflows into the environment (such as wastes and emissions), 
and exports to other socio-economic systems (Figure 2). Depending on the 
issue, an MFA can focus on specific flows of interest, such as food and 
energy, investigate specific chemical substances (substance flow analysis), or 
track problematic materials such as plastics or e-waste in a system.  

 
Figure 2: Material Flow Analysis for SMR 
Source:  Simron J Singh 

                                                        
5 MEFA is attributed to the Vienna school of social metabolism (Fischer-Kowalski and 
Weisz 2016; Haberl et al. 2016), and the scholarship on MuSIASEM comes from the 
Barcelona school of societal metabolism (Giampietro et al. 2009, 2012). 



[27] Simron J Singh, Simran Talwar, Megha Shenoy 

Standard headline indicators include direct material inputs (DMI, the sum 
of domestically extracted raw material and imports), domestic material 
consumption (DMC, the difference between direct material inputs and 
exports), physical trade balance (PTB, the difference between imports and 
exports), material intensity (MI, the ratio of DMC to gross domestic 
product [GDP]), and resource efficiency (inverse of MI, also referred to as 
material productivity). DMI and DMC are important metrics for assessing 
nationwide material flows (UNEP 2016; Eurostat 2018). DMC, measured in 
tonnes per capita, indicates the average material consumption of the 
economy and is a useful marker of the impact of population growth and 
consumption on material use. These metrics allow for a comparison 
between socio-economic systems to determine system performance, levels 
of vulnerability, and anticipated risks.  

Up until recently, much of SMR focused on “flows” of materials and energy 
through an economy. The contributions of “flow” studies include mapping 
trajectories of resource use across space and time. Insights from these 
studies shed light on past and ongoing resource-use patterns (Schandl et al. 
2017; Krausmann et al. 2016), historical and ongoing transitions from 
agrarian to industrial modes of production (Weisz et al. 2001; Haberl et al. 
2011), decoupling and eco-efficiency (UNEP 2011; Wiedenhofer et al. 
2020), progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 
(Bringezu et al. 2016; Eisenmenger et al. 2020), and “environmental justice” 
or the (unequal) distribution of the costs and benefits of social metabolism 
on different spatial and temporal scales (Healy et al. 2013; Martinez-Alier et 
al. 2016; Scheidel and Schaffartzik 2019). More recently, SMR has provided 
crucial insights on the nonlinearity of society–nature interactions. The 
findings from SMR suggest that a high quality of life is possible with 
moderate levels of material use. Using data from multiple countries, 
researchers have found that human well-being only increases with resource 
use or emissions up to certain threshold (saturation point), beyond which 
no clear trends emerge (Lamb et al. 2014; Mayer, Haas, and Wiedenhofer 
2017). 

Interest in the accumulation of “material stocks” within the SMR 
community has risen in the last decade. “Flow” accounting has revealed 
that over 50% of extracted resources now go into building stocks, up from 
20% in 1900. Scholars have also realized that “stock” patterns and 
dynamics influence current and future “flows” of resources (first for 
building and then for maintenance), creating lock-in effects and path 
dependencies (Krausmann et al. 2020). Quite recently, scholars have pointed 
to the important link between stocks and services. In 2015, 75% of all 
materials extracted (62 Gt/year) were used either to build up stocks or to 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [28] 

operate them to provide societal services such as housing, transport, health, 
and education (Krausmann, Wiedenhofer, and Haberl 2020). It has become 
evident that material stocks enable societies to convert resource flows into 
specific services. Two-thirds of the SDGs depend on infrastructure 
investment, as it forms the backbone of production and consumption and 
our daily lives and, hence, the material basis of societal well-being (Thacker 
et al. 2019). The service approach within SMR offers new perspectives and 
strategies for achieving higher levels of well-being with lower levels of 
resource use by improving the material intensity of services (Haberl et al. 
2017). 

Another novel contribution of SMR (within both the flow and stock 
approaches) is the concept of a circular economy (CE), which has recently 
emerged as an important policy goal and a sustainability strategy in many 
parts of the world (Geng et al. 2013; Ghisellini, Cialani, and Ulgiati 2016). 
CE departs from the dominant linear (take–make–dispose) economy in 
favour of a relatively closed, systemic, cyclical, and restorative model (Ellen 
MacArthur Foundation 2013; Merli, Preziosi, and Acampora 2018; Stahel 
2019). CE borrows the idea of cycling resources through society just as 
nature cycles water, nutrients, carbon, and other essential materials. While 
loop closing can occur on any scale up to a global one, existing CE research 
and practice tend to focus on the meso scale, mostly at the level of eco-
industrial parks (Salomone et al. 2020). Industrial symbiosis, as this sub-field 
is termed (Chertow 2000), focuses on resource life–extending strategies and 
the eco-efficiency of goods and services (i.e., reducing resource input per 
unit of output). Economic and environmental benefits are the primary 
motivations for more efficient product design, cleaner production, and 
closing material loops by valourizing waste (Ghisellini, Cialani, and Ulgiati 
2016; Stahel 2019; Kirchherr, Reike, and Hekkert 2017; Sauvé, Bernard, and 
Sloan 2016). MFA techniques are expected to be increasingly applied to 
entire economies to identify strategies for resource optimizing and sharing 
between sectors to increase the overall “circularity rate” of the system 
(Mayer et al. 2019; Haas et al. 2020). 

4. SMR IN INDIA 

SMR is widely conducted in Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia, 
and China. Insights from the research are increasingly playing an important 
role in policy surrounding national resource security and sustainability. This 
section will review some of the key works that have used SMR in India, 
from the national scale to the industry level. Each of these applications 
offers different insights and perspectives on sustainability.  

 



[29] Simron J Singh, Simran Talwar, Megha Shenoy 

4.1 SMR at the National Scale 

In India, SMR is still in its infancy. Singh et al. (2012) published the first 
comprehensive national MFA account for India, examining the 1961–2008 
period. The results show that material use quadrupled (by a factor of 3.8) in 
this period, driven by an increase in the use of non-renewables, mostly from 
domestic sources. In 1960, about three-quarters of the total material was 
biomass, which doubled by the end of the study period. In contrast, fossil 
fuel consumption multiplied by a factor of 12.2, industrial minerals and ores 
by a factor of 8.6, and construction materials by a factor of 9.1. Between 
1961 and 2008, per capita material use (DMC/cap) grew by 60%, from 3 to 
4.3 tonnes/cap/year. 

Further work reveals that India’s burgeoning manufacturing sector is 
projected to account for 25% of India’s GDP by 2025 (IBEF 2019), 
supported by the country’s various infrastructure and capacity-building 
initiatives such as Make in India (2014), Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor 
Project (2006), and Skill India Mission (2015). It is no surprise, then, that 
the country’s material, energy, and water demand is rising sharply, 
aggravated by challenges in the efficient recovery of used resources, weak 
market mechanisms for secondary materials, and an imperfectly functioning 
informal waste sector. SMR enables the quantifiable assessment of resource 
use in the context of economic productivity as a means of evaluating 
longitudinal shifts in material and energy consumption and identifying 
sources of metabolic transition driven by an economy’s resource use. 

India contributed 5% to the world’s manufacturing output in 2017 and 
ranked fifth among the largest manufacturing nations, after China, the US, 
Japan, and Germany (UNCTAD 2013). India recorded the second-highest 
material demand, after China, experiencing an 81% increase between 2000 
and 2015 (UNEP-IRP 2018). Despite the surge in India’s aggregate material 
demand, its per capita material consumption in 2015 was still way below 
global standards at 5.34 tonnes, compared to Australia (38.38 tonnes), 
China (23.65 tonnes), and the US (21.14 tonnes) (Table 1). The dichotomy 
of India’s expected pace of industrialization and multifarious resource 
exigencies presents a timely opportunity to take stock of the country’s 
resource-use patterns.  



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [30] 

Table 1: Domestic Material Consumption Trends in Top Industrial Regions 

Country DMC (tonnes) per 
capita in 2015 

CAGR* between 1990 
and 2015 (%) 

Australia 38.38 –0.07 

China 23.65 5.92 

United States of America 21.14 –1.01 

Europe 13.84 –0.05 

Japan 9.38 –1.37 

India 5.34 1.96 

Source: Talwar (2019), based on Dittrich (2014); UNEP-IRP (2018); OECD 
(2016) 
*Compound annual growth rate 

Shah, Dong, and Park (2020) compare trade, material flows, and resource 
efficiency indicators for Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan over four decades 
from 1978 to 2017. The analyses show India’s rising reliance on material 
imports as a result of increased domestic demand, shifting the nation’s 
status from resource-neutral to resource-deficient. Although India’s GDP is 
accelerating, the authors underscore the importance of trade policy 
incentives and technological innovation in achieving dematerialization. 
Figure 3 maps India’s material-use trends from 1970 to 2017.  

 

Figure 3: Trends in India’s Material Use (1970–2017) 
Source: Talwar (2019), based on UNEP-IRP (2018) 

Typical patterns of fast-industrializing economies emerge, with increases in 
the use of fossil fuels (74%) and non-metallic minerals (66%) (Figure 3). 



[31] Simron J Singh, Simran Talwar, Megha Shenoy 

Indeed, the construction, industrial, and agricultural sectors dominate non-
metallic mineral use in India, bolstered by ongoing investments in 
infrastructure building, residential and commercial development, and 
expanding manufacturing output (Talwar 2019). 

The growth in India’s resource needs comes at a price. The Global Atlas of 
Environmental Justice (2021) reports that over 3,400 cases of conflict 
worldwide arise from inequalities in resource use, including extraction, 
production, consumption, and disposal. Of these, 343 cases (10%) are from 
India alone. Drawing on the material flows study that Singh et al. (2012) 
conducted on India and the EJOLT (2021) project, Martinez-Alier, Temper, 
and Demaria (2016) demonstrate the link between social metabolism and 
ecological distribution conflicts. Such cases in India include those involving 
bauxite mining in Odisha, disputes around waste management in Delhi, and 
ship dismantling in Gujarat. Using domestic household water consumption 
patterns in Bangalore, Mehta et al. (2014) demonstrate that questions about 
environmental justice are inseparable from those of biophysical 
sustainability. More recently, Roy and Schaffartzik (2021) analysed land 
dispossession, exclusion, and injustices associated with the increasing use of 
coal in India. 

4.2 SMR at the Sub-national Scale 

SMR at the sub-national scale in India is highly limited. Singh et al. (2001) 
conducted the first comprehensive local SMR (a MEFA) on Trinket Island 
in the Nicobar district of India in the Bay of Bengal. The study portrays the 
changing metabolic profile of an indigenous society—the Nicobarese—
affected by the development programmes of the Indian state. The Trinket 
Island case was later compared to the rise in material and energy 
consumption due to excessive aid following the 2004 Asian tsunami (Singh, 
Fischer-Kowalski, and Haas 2018). Noll (2015) undertook a socio-
metabolic analysis in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region by applying a 
MEFA to the brick industry. By quantifying the pressure on soil and water 
due to brick production in the region, he demonstrates the threat to and 
conflicts with food production, along with other adverse impacts on local 
communities and the environment.  

Local SMR falls within the tradition of “local studies” (Singh et al. 2010), a 
scale viewed as forming the basis of national and global economies. By 
paying attention to scale interactions, local SMR highlights the role of rural 
economies in providing critical ecosystem services—provisioning, 
regulatory, and cultural—to the country. At the same time, they are 
vulnerable to the socio-ecological impacts of extraction, production, and 
waste deposition. Local SMR seeks to understand how the “local” is altered 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [32] 

by global processes through interventions such as subsidies, markets, legal 
frameworks, the creation of infrastructure, and the introduction of services 
such as health and education. Analysis at local scales is gaining importance 
because it provides insights into local actions and decisions that have 
cumulative effects on the global environment (Singh and Haas 2016). 

The Bangalore Urban Metabolism Project (BUMP 2021), a joint initiative of 
the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Centre for Public Policy at 
the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, has done pioneering work 
in quantifying resource use in an urban context. Following a systems 
approach, a team of researchers led by Deepak Malghan, Vivek Mehta, and 
Eric Kemp-Benedict adopted SMR to analyse material and energy 
throughputs in the city of Bangalore. BUMP grapples with urban 
sustainability challenges to inform better governance that integrates 
economic efficiency, social equity, and environmental sustainability.  

Intensive discussions encompassing CE and resource efficiency in India are 
in progress. Policy announcements like the Steel Scrap Recycling Policy 
(2019) and National Resource Efficiency Programme (2019) are important 
developments for SMR in India. While CE (and its sub-field, industrial 
symbiosis, with a focus on eco-industrial parks) has been widely researched 
in China, studies in India are limited in number and scope, despite the 
manufacturing sector’s rising share in economic activity. Previous research 
on China’s CE implementation, success, and impediments notes that policy 
structure, execution, and monitoring are largely top–down, with the 
government and state departments playing an active role (Ashton and 
Shenoy 2015; Ghisellini, Cialani, and Ulgiati 2016; Mathews and Tan 2011; 
Shenoy 2015). In contrast, an examination of industrial symbiosis networks 
in India reveals the potential for bottom–up eco-industrial development, 
with industry actors leading socio-metabolic transitions in critical resource-
intensive sectors like manufacturing (Talwar 2019). 

Previous studies in India have assessed eco-industrial progress in industrial 
parks and at the level of regions and states. Singhal and Kapur (2002) 
propose strategies for incorporating SMR approaches into industrial estate 
plans by classifying industry types, conducting regional environmental 
impact assessments for upcoming estates, integrating green industrial 
townships, and more widely applying environmental management systems 
to manage park performance. Saraswat (2008) sets out pathways for existing 
industrial parks to transition to eco-industrial parks to accelerate industrial 
ecology awareness and circulated toolkits among industry and government 
actors. Talwar (2019) noted that some states, such as Gujarat and Andhra 
Pradesh, adopted a greening agenda early in their industrial development by 



[33] Simron J Singh, Simran Talwar, Megha Shenoy 

incorporating strategic design, co-located activity, shared infrastructure, and 
common services in industrial estate planning.  

Empirical findings from industrial symbiosis research in India demonstrate 
the extent of material and energy exchanges among co-located firms within 
industrial settings (Bain et al. 2010; Unnikrishnan et al. 2004). Bain et al. 
(2010) conducted one of the most comprehensive investigations of 
industrial symbiosis in India. The authors quantified material flows for 7 
resource categories and 11 self-organized symbiotic relationships within a 
42-firm dataset from the Nanjangud industrial area in Karnataka. 
Unnikrishnan, Naik, and Deshmukh (2004) emphasize the need for 
government and institutional support, shared infrastructure development in 
industrial parks, and financial incentives for industrial symbiosis 
development in India. To support eco-industrial development in India, 

initiatives by agencies like the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale 
Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Gujarat Cleaner Production Centre (GCPC), and 
Indo German Environment Partnership (IGEP) have been instrumental in 
increasing awareness and the adoption of industrial ecology principles 
among governments and industries (GIZ and IGEP 2015; Nukala and 
Meyer 2012).  

5. HOW CAN INDIA FACILITATE SMR TO LEVERAGE ITS 
FULL POTENTIAL?   

A transition to sustainability—so that citizens can enjoy a high quality of 
life at the lowest environment cost—would require a fundamental shift in 
our resource-use patterns and the way we conceive of human development 
(Fanning and O’Neill 2019; Raworth 2017; Lamb and Steinberger 2017). 
There is no doubt that India’s resource needs will grow in the coming 
decades as a result of improving material standards of living among a 
growing population, which will reach 1.7 billion by 2050. The big question 
is how. Can India source the materials and energy necessary for human 
development sustainably, without increasing the pressures on the domestic 
and global environment? India needs a new resource revolution, different 
from the Green Revolution and Industrial Revolution, both of which relied 
on an ever-increasing exploitation of natural resources.  

To foster a resource revolution, a multilevel perspective combined with 
innovation in resource use and efficiency is imperative. Systemic 
approaches need to be favoured over narrow research agendas that, by 
oversimplifying complex interactions, obscure synergies and trade-offs 
between various social and environmental goals. Interdisciplinary 
approaches with the ability to integrate knowledge from the natural and 
social sciences; provide common definitions and system boundaries; and 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [34] 

guide indicator and model development are urgently needed (Haberl et al. 
2019; Geels 2011, 2018). In this regard, SMR offers a compelling 
methodological framework along with a suite of tools and indicators that 
can offer great insight on policy and drive innovation for a global CE. 
However, there are some barriers to overcome. Shenoy (2015) identifies 
three key challenges that need attention before SMR can reach its full 
potential in India.  

First is the lack of adequate data. Although the state and central pollution 
control boards keep records of companies’ maximum capacities and track 
hazardous waste, they do not have records of the actual tonnage of 
materials used or traded (Bain, Ashton, and Shenoy 2009). In other words, 
there is no collation of actual material flow data at the city, state, regional, 
and national levels. While large companies have data on their material 
consumption, use, and disposal, data on materials recycled are scarce. Most 
waste streams from a single industry are bundled together and sold (or 
auctioned) to agents who then separate out the recyclables from the rest 
(Bain et al. 2010; Ashton and Bain 2012). Materials pass through several 
agents before they are recycled, and the number of agents they pass through 
depends on the type of material, point of recycling, value, and storability. 
Much of the disaggregation of recyclables happens via the informal market 
and, hence, there is low to no traceability of data (Medina 2007).  

Second is that the development of SMR lacks adequate funding, training, 
and public awareness. Despite recent developments in research and 
development in the renewable energy sector and green tech (Singh 2019), 
increased funding for training and research is needed to develop SMR 
before it can effectively contribute to innovative solutions that optimize 
resource flows and improve material efficiency.  

Third is the lack of data and information on externalities, that is, harmful 
effects not internalized in the production costs of enterprises. For example, 
during mining operations, only the labour costs of removing forest cover 
and topsoil, not the disregarded materials, are accounted for. Several 
production processes, even in large industries, entail social and 
environmental externalities unique to the specific sector and local context. 
These unaccounted resources are relevant to thoroughly understanding 
socio-metabolic pathways and their future potential (Hulten, Bennathan, 
and Srinivasan 2006). 

Ecological economists can and must play a bold and crucial role in the new 
resource revolution in India. This entails strategic partnerships between 
academia, businesses, and the public sector. Fostering interdisciplinary and 
transdisciplinary research and training around SMR; building the capacity of 



[35] Simron J Singh, Simran Talwar, Megha Shenoy 

large, medium, and small enterprises; promoting resource innovation on 
multiple scales; and fostering a culture of sufficiency and efficiency are 
some of the key ingredients. As Costanza et al. (2020) has argued, ecological 
economics as a field of research has the potential to guide us into a future 
we all want, one that is prosperous, just, equitable, and sustainable.  

 
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