Section history

Metabolism
About SEM Community resources Industry and policy applications Section leadership Section history Members Member spotlights Member map Join section News Events Resources Contact

History of the Socio-Economic Metabolism section

SEM research has a rich history in research streams from the social sciences that link natural factors such as land, labor, energy, and materials to society and natural sciences that extended their disciplinary knowledge on nutrient flows, material, energy, and thermodynamics to economies and societies (figure below).

Figure: Family tree of research traditions from social sciences (left side) and natural sciences (right side) that inspire current SEM research. Color legend: Light green, roots from the social sciences; turquoise, roots from the natural sciences; grey, ancestors and founders of current SEM research traditions. Image source: Contributions of sociometabolic research to sustainability science, by Helmut Haberl et al. (2019), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0225-2

History of the ISIE-SEM Section

The origins of the ISIE-SEM section as an internationally organized community of researchers on socio-economic metabolism can be traced back to the ConAccount network of researchers, who gathered under the topic "Coordination of Regional and National Material Flow Accounting for Environmental Sustainability" back in 1996.

The ConAccount network was established in May 1996. It was coordinated by colleagues from the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy (WI) in close cooperation with the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and Continuing Education (IFF) in Vienna, the Centre of Environmental Science of Leiden University (CML), and Statistics Sweden.

Until the end of 1997, ConAccount was supported by the European Commission’s Directorates-General DG XII - Research & Innovation. During this first phase, the network had about 100 members, and their list was published on the web (and also as Wuppertal Special 9). Since February 2000, interactive registration was possible through a website operated with support by the European Environment Agency (EnviroWindows).

The ConAccount network officially joined the ISIE as MFA-ConAccount Section in 2008. In 2013, the section name was changed to Socio-Economic Metabolism (SEM).

List of SEM Section Board periods and chairs

  • 2023-2024: Chair: Stefan Pauliuk, University of Freiburg, Germany
  • 2020-2022: Chair: Hiroki Tanikawa, Nagoya University
  • 2016-2019: Chair: Helga Weisz, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
  • 2013-2015: Chair: Heinz Schandl, CSIRO, MFA-ConAccount changed its name to SEM
  • 2010-2012: Chair: Daniel B. Müller, NTNU Trondheim, Norway
  • 2009: First election for the ISIE-SEM board
  • 2007-2009: ConAccount network, Daniel B. Müller and Helga Weisz
  • 2004-2006: ConAccount network, interim phase
  • 1998-2003: ConAccount network, Stefan Bringezu

Past and Upcoming SEM Section Conferences and ConAccount meetings

(Not all links below still work, but the pages may be found on internet archives.)

  • 2026, Cambridge, UK: (Conf. Chairs Jonathan Cullen and André Serrenho (University of Cambridge) and Rick Lupton (University of Bath)) (16th)
  • 2024, Beijing, China (Conf. Chairs Profs. Gang Liu and Xin Tong) (15th) 15th ISIE-SEM 2025 section conference in Beijing, China https://isiesem2024.net/   
  • 2022, Vienna, Austria: (Conf. Chair Prof. Stefan Giljum) (14th) 14th ISIE-SEM 2022 conference in Vienna. https://is4ie.org/events/isie-section-conferences/81
  • Since 2020: SEM Online Perpetual Conference: The ISIE Socioeconomic Metabolism perpetual online conference is a series of webinars organized by section members that serves as a platform for presenting and discussing latest research from the SEM Section. This webinar series was installed during the Corona pandemic as an online replacement for the section conference in Sendai, which was planned for 2020 and 2021. https://is4ie.org/events/event/the-isie-socioeconomic-metabolism-perpetual-online-conference
  • 2019, Berlin, Germany: (Conf. Chair Prof. Helga Weisz) (13th) 13th Conference of the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) - Socio-Economic Metabolism Section. https://is4ie.org/events/isie-section-conferences/47
  • 2016, Nagoya, Japan: (Conf. Chair Prof. Hiroki Tanikawa) (12th) 2016 Joint 12th (ISIE) Socio-Economic Metabolism & 5th Asia-Pacific Conference. https://is4ie.org/events/isie-section-conferences/10
  • 2014, Melbourne, Australia: (Conf. Chair Prof. Heinz Schandl) (11th) 2014 Joint 11th (ISIE) Socio-Economic Metabolism & 4th Asia Pacific Conference. https://is4ie.org/events/isie-section-conferences/11
  • 2012, Darmstadt, Germany: (Conf. Chair Prof. Liselotte Schebek) (10th) 2012 ISIE MFA-ConAccount Conference https://is4ie.org/events/isie-section-conferences/14
  • 2010, Tokyo, Japan: (Conf. Chair Prof. Yuichi Moriguchi) (9th) 2010 ISIE Asia Pacific Meeting & 9th ISIE MFA-ConAccount Meeting. https://is4ie.org/events/isie-section-conferences/18
  • 2008, Prague, Czech Republic (Conf. Chair Prof. Tomas Hak) (8th) ConAccount 2008, Urban Metabolism: measuring ecological cities. https://www.czp.cuni.cz/ConAccount/index.php
  • 2006, Vienna, Austria: (Conf. Chair Prof. Marina Fischer-Kowalski) ConAccount meeting 2006, Dematerialization across scales: Measurement, empirical evidence, future options (7th)
  • 2004, Zürich, Switzerland: (Conf. Chair Prof. Susanne Kytzia) ConAccount meeting 2004, Towards a new common ground for Research on Sustainable Resource use (6th)
  • 2003, Wuppertal, Germany: (Conf. Chair Dr. Stefan Bringezu) ConAccount meeting 2003. Material Flow Analysis - Where do we go? (5th)
  • 2001, Stockholm, Sweden: (Conf. Chair Viveka Palm) (4th) ConAccount Workshop “Economic growth, material flows and environmental pressure”, 26-27 April 2001.
  • 1998, Amsterdam, Netherlands: (Conf. Chair René Kleijn) (3rd) ConAccount Workshoop: Ecologizing Societal Metabolism Designing Scenarios for Sustainable Materials Management; Proceedings published as CML report 148.
  • 1997: The first ConAccount workshop was held in Leiden, 21-23 Jan 1997 (Proceedings published as Wuppertal Special 4, ISBN 3-92 99 44-05-7), and a conference 11-12 Sept 1997 in Wuppertal (Proceedings published as Wuppertal Special 6). A research and development agenda was developed (Wuppertal Special 8).