Dr Marina Fischer-Kowalski is Professor and former Director of the Institute for Social Ecology in Vienna. She and her team developed a model of society-nature interactions which incorporates analysis of resource use and environmental impacts from population and economic growth. Her social metabolism approach has guided the development of a consistent system for material flow accounting which is now incorporated in EU statistical accounting. It has also been adopted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and many Asian countries.
She was a co-founder of the International Society for Industrial Ecology and served as its President, as well as President to the Society for Ecological Economics. She is an editorial board member of the journal Anthropocene Review, and an editorial advisory board member to the International Journal for Industrial Ecology as well as INSEE, the Indian Journal for Ecological Economics. In addition to her extensive published work in books and academic journals, Dr Fischer-Kowalski is a frequent public speaker on sustainable resource management at major global conferences and academic societies. Dr Fisher-Kowalski earned a PhD in sociology from the University of Vienna, in Austria.
Dr Fischer-Kowalski serves on the IRP’s Decoupling Working Group, and co-authored the report, Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth. She also coordinated review of the biofuels report. She presented at the 18th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in 2010, at Rio+20 in 2010, and made a keynote address at the World Resources Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2009.
Selected Publications
Fischer-Kowalski, M., Rovenskaya, E., Krausmann, F., Pallua, I., McNeill, J.R. (2019) Energy transitions and social revolutions. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 138, pp 69-77. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2018.08.010
Haberl, H., Wiedenhofer, D., Pauliuk, ST., Krausmann, F., Müller, D., Fischer-Kowalski, M. (2019) Contributions of sociometabolic research to sustainability science. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0225-2
Schandl, H., Fischer-Kowalski, M., West, J., Giljum, S., Dittrich, M., Eisenmenger, N., Geschke, A., Lieber, M., Wieland, H.P., Schaffartzik, A., Krausmann, F., Gierlinger, S., Hosking, K., Lenzen, M., Tanikawa, H., Miatto, A., Fishman, T. (2018). Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity. Forty Years of Evidence. Journal of Industrial Ecology vol.22 no 4, pp. 827-838, DOI: 10.1111/jiec.12626
Fischer-Kowalski, M. and A. Schaffartzik (2015) Energy availability and energy sources as determinants of societal development in a long-term perspective. MRS Energy & Sustainability: A Review Journal vol.2, pp. 1-14 Doi: 10.1557/mre.2015.2
Fischer-Kowalski,M. (2015) Social Ecology. In: Wright,J., (Ed.) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, second edition, pp. 254-262. Amsterdam: Elsevier
Fischer-Kowalski, M., Krausmann, F. and Pallua, I. (2014) A sociometabolic reading of the Anthropocene: Modes of subsistence, population size and human impact on Earth. The Anthropocene Review 1, 8-33. http://anr.sagepub.com/content/1/1/8.full.pdf+html
Wiedenhofer, Dominik, Rovenskaya, Elena, Haas, Willi, Krausmann, Fridolin, Pallua, Irene, and Fischer-Kowalski, Marina (2013): Is there a 1970s Syndrome? Analyzing Structural Breaks in the Metabolism of Industrial Economies. Energy Procedia, 40, 182-191, [online] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610213016160
Hashimoto, S., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Suh, S., Bai, X. (eds.), 2012. Greening Growing Giants. A Major Challenge of Our Planet. Special Issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology 16(4), [online], http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.2012.16.issue-4/issuetoc
Krausmann F, Fischer-Kowalski M, Schandl H, Eisenmenger N. 2009. The global socio-metabolic transition: past and present metabolic profiles and their future trajectories. Journal of Industrial Ecology 12(5-6), 637-656 [download preprint version], http:/ /www.aau.at /socec/ downloads/2009 _ KrausmannFischer-Kowalski Schandl_metabolic_ transition_JIE12_58.pdf
Krausmann F, Gingrich S, Eisenmenger N, Erb K-H, Haberl H, Fischer-Kowalski M. 2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705 [download preprint version], http:// www.aau.at/socec/ downloads/2009_ Krausmann GingrichEisenmenger _Growth _in_global _materials _use_EE68_8.pdf
Haberl, Helmut, Fischer-Kowalski, Marina, Krausmann, Fridolin, Weisz, Helga, and Winiwarter, Verena (2004): Progress Towards Sustainability? What the conceptual framework of material and energy flow accounting (MEFA) can offer. In: Land Use Policy 21(3), pp. 199-213.
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina (2002): Exploring the history of industrial metabolism. In: Ayres, Robert U. and Ayres, Leslie W. (Eds.): Handbook of Industrial Ecology. Cheltenham, UK and Lyme, US: Edward Elgar Bd. 2, pp. 16-26.
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina and Amann, Christof (2001): Beyond IPAT and Kuznets Curves: Globalization as a Vital Factor in Analysing the Environmental Impact of Socio-Economic Metabolism. In: Population and Environment 23(1), pp. 7-47.
Matthews, Emily, Amann, Christof, Fischer-Kowalski, Marina, Bringezu, Stefan, Hüttler, Walter, Kleijn, René, Moriguchi, Yuichi, Ottke, Christian, Rodenburg, Eric, Rogich, Don, Schandl, Heinz, Schütz, Helmut, van der Voet, Ester, and Weisz, Helga (2000): The Weight of Nations: Material Outflows from Industrial Economies. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina and Hüttler, Walter (1999): Society's Metabolism. The Intellectual History of Material Flow Analysis, Part II: 1970-1998. In: Journal of Industrial Ecology 2(4), pp. 107-137.
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina and Haberl, Helmut (1998): Sustainable Development: Socio-Economic Metabolism and Colonization of Nature. In: International Social Science Journal 158(4), pp. 573-587.
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina (1998): Society's Metabolism. The Intellectual History of Material Flow Analysis, Part I, 1860 - 1970. In: Journal of Industrial Ecology 2(1), pp. 61-78. [online], http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ doi/10.1162/ jiec.1998.2.1.61/pdf
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina and Haberl, Helmut (1997): Tons, Joules and Money: Modes of Production and their Sustainability Problems. In: Society and Natural Resources 10(1), pp. 61-85.
Videos
Industrial Ecology Seminar on Sociometabolic Regimes and Transitions between them (March 2017)
View more publications on Google Scholar
Contributed to the following reports
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Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity (with database link)
Growing concern about assuring affordable, equitable and environmentally sustainable access to natural resources is well founded. In this report we show global natural resource use trends and propose indicators for evidence-based policy formulation.
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International Trade in Resources
International trade is indispensable for countries to meet demand for resources not available, accessible or affordable domestically. This report looks at implications of rapidly rising trade flows for global resource and environmental efficiency.
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Assessing Biofuels
This report provides a robust assessment of key problems of production and use of biomass for energy purposes and options for more efficient and sustainable production and use of biomass.
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Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth
We are using unsustainable amounts of the Earth’s natural resources. We need to improve the rate of resource productivity (“doing more with less”) faster than the economic growth rate. This is the notion behind “decoupling”.