Uncertainty and variability are inevitable in studying the environmental impacts
of society's use of resources. This was the subject of a Special Session "Moving
beyond averages: uncertainty and variability analysis in industrial ecology",
which I co-chaired together with [Dr Jonathan
Cullen](https://www-diva.eng.cam.ac.uk/directory/joncullen), [Leo
Paoli](http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/lp457) and [Dr David
Laner](http://iwr.tuwien.ac.at/en/resources/staff/scientific-staff/profile/Laner/),
at the [International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE)
conference](http://isie-issst2017.uic.edu/) in Chicago in June 2017. This post
summarises the session, and collects the results of the discussion with the
session participants.
Material flow analysis (MFA) is widely used to study the life cycles of materials from production, through use, to reuse, recycling, or disposal, in order to identify environmental impacts and opportunities to address them. However, development of …