Industrial metabolism

Industrial metabolism presupposes a connection between different industrial activities by seeing them as part of a larger system, such as a material cycle or the supply chain of a commodity. System scientists, for example in industrial ecology, use the concept as paradigm to study the flow of materials or energy through the industrial system in order to better understand supply chains, the sources and causes of emissions, and the linkages between the industrial and the wider socio-technological system.

Industrial metabolism is a subsystem of the anthropogenic or socioeconomic metabolism, which also comprises non-industrial human activities in households or the public sector.