Environmental and resource economics

The frame for the environmental and resource economics research at Thule Institute is the economy-wide material flow accounting and analysis (MFA) combined with the input-output analysis of the product flows of the economy. The material flows of the economy illustrate the flows of extracted natural resources from nature to the economy, the physical flows of products in the processing and fabrication chains of the economy and from production to the final use and finally the flows back into nature as emissions and waste. The eco-efficiency and conditions of ecological sustainability of the economy can be analysed by integrating the material flows with the monetary flows of the economy.

The research has been conducted at several projects in collaboration especially with the Finnish Environment Institute, Agrifood Research Finland and Statistics Finland and in association with the European research network, ConAccount.

Recently the international research collaboration on the northern economies has developed. The focus of this research collaboration has been on the interaction of economy and nature.

Recent and current research projects:

ECOREG, The Eco-efficiency of Regions – Case Kymenlaakso (Finnish Environment Institute, Thule Institute, the Southeast Finland Regional Environment Centre and the Regional Council of Kymenlaakso, 2002–2004)

Material flows and the management of secondary flows in the Finnish mining industry (Thule Institute, 2005), webpage in Finnish

FINWASTE, Waste accounts of Finland (Thule Institute, Finnish Environment Institute SYKE, Statistics Finland 2003–2006), webpage in Finnish

ENVIMAT, Environmental impacts of material flows caused by the Finnish economy (Finnish Environment Institute, Thule Institute, MTT Agrifood Research Finland and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, 2006–2008)

ConsEnv, Environmental impacts of the consumer's choice and communicating them to consumers (MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Finnish Environment Institute, Thule Institute and National Consumer Research Centre, 2006–2008).

The Economy of the North (ECONOR)

ARCTICSTAT. Socioeconomic database on the Circumpolar Arctic

IMEA. Imports in Environmental Accounting. EU SKEP Era-Net project.

Development of Research and education in the field of environmental economics in Northern FInland (YTAK), webpage in Finnish

Research personnel
Project leader, Research Professor Ilmo Mäenpää
Research Assistant Mira Koivula