On the emergy accounting of intangible goods

Sustainability and equitable use of the resources require a proper evaluation of all their flows in the complex network of relationships ensuring systems functioning, resilience and dynamics. Monetary evaluations alone are framed within a user-side perspective that hardly captures the complex role played by the natural capital and by the intangible goods. On the other hand, the donorside perspective which the Emergy Accounting is based on provides a measure of values that accounts for all the investment done in generating services and resources at amore exhaustive scale than those addressed by economic analyses, opening the possibility of evaluating the contribution to the systemic operation of intangible aspects otherwise negleted by many "traditional" analysis methodologies. In this paper, the problem of accounting of intangible goods in emergy analysis is addressed. The systemic role of "stocks" of image and reputation is described for some case studies systems, pointing out how their quantitative determination is needed in the description of the systems oparation for a comprehensive evaluation of their sustainability. In particular, we discuss the contribution given by the image of a system in the case of a produtive sector and for an higher education system. As for the former case study, we address the sustainability of the renowned artistic glass sector of Murano island, in the Venice Lagoon (Italy), which has been challenged in recent years by the evolution of several socio-economic dynamics aswell as by environmental constraints. A renewal of the systemic structure of the artistic glass production is linked to a proper management of the products image, an image which in turn depends on that of the entire city of Venice, underlining how the sustainability of the sector is part of that of Venice and its lagoon. As concerns the second example, the image and reputation of a public University is addressed as a key factor affecting both the recruitment of qualified faculty and the enrollment of students, as well as the capability of attracting financial support from privates and through the participation in joint projects. Actually, the University -both as a physical system and as an Institution- pursues operational strategies that are ultimately based on market-related issues. For example, the competitive academic environment draws a particular attention to the prestige given by a sustainable University, making its reputation a key concept in maintaining its competitiveness. In this sense, from a systemic point of view, sustainability and image become strictly correlated concepts.