Freiburg Open Science Portal for Industrial Ecology and Socio-Metabolic Research

Welcome to the open science portal of the industrial ecology research group (IEF), University of Freiburg

On these pages, members of the industrial ecology research group at the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources of the University of Freiburg, Germany offer a comprehensive open science environment for industrial ecology and socio-metabolic research. We blog about sustainable use of material and energy, our research, and the projects we are involved in. We host the IEDC, a database on social metabolism with global scope. We share information and material related to our research software, offer a large compilation of teaching material, and provide tools to visualise energy and material flows in society.

Open science is a global movement to make scientific research (including data, models, software, visualisation tools, and related teaching material) transparent and accessible to all levels of society. Open science is part of the DNA of our research group, and we use public funding to strengthen the research infrastructure, teaching material, and public knowledge base related to energy and material flows in society and their sustainable management.

You can find out more about our group, our research approach, and our teaching on our official homepage

illustration of the content of this portal

+++ News +++


IEDC Critical Mass Sprint completed

[Winter 2026] During the 2025 critical mass sprint, in total 180 datasets were collected, formatted, and uploaded to the IEDC. These datasets cover service provision, in-use stocks, product material composition, energy intensity, and lifetimes of products, focussing on products and commodities including appliances, buildings, vehicles, infrastructure, industrial assets, and energy system technologies. They are now part of one of the largest openly available compilations of material stock and flow and product group data, and can be found via the IEDC’s multiple search functions. Gini illustration Direct access to the IEDC and its multiple search functions: https://www.database.industrialecology.uni-freiburg.de/

First datasets on socio-metabolic inequality – New tool to browse IEDC datasets by project

[Winter 2026] Inequality is a major issue of our time, but data on inequality are still scarce. The new IEDC project “Socio_metabolic_inequality_SMI” offers to the community a compilation of around 20 datasets on Lorenz curves, Gini coefficients, and other inequality indicators from more than 50 literature sources. The data cover non-monetary socio-metabolic indicators (service provision, stocks, flows, energy, material, water, GHG/emissions, and land). The datasets can be found by using a new search tool that allows users to quickly find all IEDC datasets linked to a certain project. Submission of own datasets to the IEDC to this and other projects is welcome! Gini illustration See all datasets in this and other projects: https://www.database.industrialecology.uni-freiburg.de/projects.aspx?project=Socio_metabolic_inequality_SMI

New tool to search the industrial ecology data commons by author and DOI

[Winter 2026] Users of the industrial ecology data commons (IEDC) can now search for data by specific authors (by name) and publications (by DOI). The new search feature browses through both, the catalogue of datasets and the comment feature of each individual data point, so that data from specific authors or publication that are part of larger compilations can also be found. DOI icon Access to the new search function: https://www.database.industrialecology.uni-freiburg.de/iedc_author_DOI_search.aspx

CIRCOMOD project input data now available on the Industrial Ecology Community Database

[Summer 2025] During the first phase of the CIRCOMOD EU-Horizon project (Circular Economy Modelling for Climate Change Mitigation), about two dozen of researchers have collected, formatted, and validated a larger number of datasets on service provision, in-use stocks, product material composition, energy intensity, and lifetimes of products, focussing on appliances, buildings, vehicles, infrastructure, industrial assets, and energy system technologies. Many of these datasets are now available on the IEDC. CIRCOMOD project Find the CIRCOMOD-related datasets on the IEDC, by searching for ‘CIRCOMOD’: https://www.database.industrialecology.uni-freiburg.de/

Critical Mass Sprint for the Industrial Ecology Community Database

[Spring 2025] 2025 is the year when we move the industrial ecology data commons prototype, launched in 2018, into a functional and helpful data archiving and retrieval tool for the entire industrial ecology community! We plan to collect, format, and upload a larger number of datasets on product material composition, energy intensity, and lifetimes of products, focussing on products and commodities including appliances, buildings, vehicles, infrastructure, industrial assets, and energy system technologies. Critical Mass Sprint for the Industrial Ecology Read more about the 2025 Critical Mass Sprint for industrial ecology data here: https://www.blog.industrialecology.uni-freiburg.de/index.php/2025/03/03/2025-iedc-critical-mass-sprint/

Links:

Our research group's official website Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources: website International Society for Industrial Ecology: website