Giampietro, Mario – ICREA Memoir 2021

Mario Giampietro

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Engineering Sciences

Mario Giampietro was born in Italy in 1953. He graduated in Chemical Engineering (1978) and Biological Sciences (1981) at Universitá La Sapienza, Rome. He has a MS degree in Food System Economics (CEFAS/Universitá La Tuscia) and a PhD in Social Sciences (Wageningen University, NL). Mario was a researcher at Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nutrizione (INRAN) from 1985 to 2007, but pursued most of his research as visiting scientist at leading universities, such as Cornell University (1987-1989 and 1992-1995), Wageningen University (1997), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1998-2000), University of Wisconsin, Madison (2002), Penn State University (2005-2006), and Arizona State University (2006-2007). He joined ICREA and UAB in 2007. He has more than 150 scientific publications and is author of several books. He was the coordinator of the Horizon2020 project "Moving Towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing Nexus Security” (MAGIC) (1996-2020).

Research interests

Mario works on integrated assessment of sustainability issues. Using concepts from complex systems theory, he has developed an innovative scientific approach: Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM). MuSIASEM integrates biophysical and socioeconomic variables across multiple hierarchical scales, thus establishing a link between the metabolism of socio-economic systems and potential constraints of the natural environment. MuSIASEM allows the use of integrated sets of indicators that can be chosen “à la carte” by social actors in relation to multiple criteria of performance. Recent research has focused on the analysis of energy systems and energy scenarios and directives (projects EUFORIE, NETEP, PARTICIPIA), food systems (GLAMUR), and the nexus between energy, food, and water in relation to sustainable development goals (MAGIC).

Selected publications

– Cadillo-Benalcazar JJ, Bukkens SGF, Ripa M & Giampietro M 2021, ‘Why does the European Union produce biofuels? Examining consistency and plausibility in prevailing narratives with quantitative storytelling‘, Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 71, article 101810.

– Manfroni M, Velasco-Fernández R, Pérez-Sánchez L, Bukkens SGF & Giampietro M 2021, ‘The profile of time allocation in the metabolic pattern of society: An internal biophysical limit to economic growth‘, Ecological Economics, 190, 107183.

– Perez-Sanchez L, Velasco-Fernandez R & Giampietro M 2021, ‘The international division of labor and embodied working time in trade for the US, the EU and China‘, Ecological Economics, 180, 106909.

– Di Felice LJ, Renner A & Giampietro M 2021, ‘Why should the EU implement electric vehicles? Viewing the relationship between evidence and dominant policy solutions through the lens of complexity‘, Environmental Science & Policy, 123: 1-10.

– Manfroni M, Bukkens SGF & Giampietro M 2021, ‘The declining performance of the oil sector: Implications for global climate change mitigation‘, Applied Energy, 298, 117210.

– Ripa M, Cadillo-Benalcazar JJ & Giampietro M 2021, ‘Cutting through the biofuel confusion: A conceptual framework to check the feasibility, viability and desirability of biofuels‘, Energy Strategy Reviews, 35, 100642.

– Ripa M, Di Felice LJ & Giampietro M 2021, ‘The energy metabolism of post-industrial economies. A framework to account for externalization across scales‘, Energy, 214, 118943.

– Harder R, Giampietro M & Smukler S 2021, ‘Towards a circular nutrient economy. A novel way to analyze the circularity of nutrient flows in food systems‘, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 172, 105693.

– Harder R, Giampietro M, Mullinix K & Smukler S 2021, ‘Assessing the circularity of nutrient flows related to the food system in the Okanagan bioregion, BC Canada‘, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 174, 105842.