Jean-Baptiste Bahers

• Phd - Full researcher
• Researcher at French National Centre for Scientific Research

Urban infrastructures, as socio-technical systems that transform metabolic flows, are a key focus for efforts at initiating a more circular economy of resource use and waste recovery. Beyond exemplar discourses and claims, an infrastructure-mediated understanding of and focus on actually existing circularity projects attends to the diverse array of...

In the context of the increasingly present policies of circular economy and the emergence of “Circular Bioeconomy” (CB), this article presents the results of a literature review on the sociometabolic research of biomasses. Six schools of thought are identified and distinguished according to their authors, their conceptions of metabolism, methodolog...

The environmental and social crises in cities call for radical future visions that can incite transformative change. Yet, urban metabolism research typically adopts an explanatory, retrospective approach to the drivers of urban flows and stocks, resulting in conservative, business‐as‐usual future outlooks. In this study, we present the results of a...

Ports worldwide are shifting from their original locations, and the reasons behind these patterns of port development are multifaceted. Reasons for locational changes may include local factors such as natural conditions, or global trends like containerisation. This article argues that flows play a significant role in making and breaking metabolic r...

Material consumption has been increasing steadily since the beginning of the 20th century. The urban metabolism field of research is one of the fields that focuses on understanding and measuring this increase at the city level. Many studies have been carried out to calculate the material consumption at the domestic scale. But it is also important t...

L’incendie de l’usine SEVESO Lubrizol à Rouen en 2019 est venu rappeler qu’une catastrophe industrielle est toujours possible dans les métropoles, malgré la tertiarisation de leur économie. Celle de Nantes, où sont localisés huit sites SEVESO et 211 installations classées pour la protection de l’environnement (ICPE), n’échappe pas à ce risque. Par...

The concept of urban metabolism has been profusely used by various disciplines over the last and current century to describe different urban phenomena. One theme that appears to gain importance in the interdisciplinary field of urban metabolism is the spatial dimension. In this article, we have carried out a bibliometric and qualitative analysis of...

Small island developing states are often characterized as vulnerable owing to their unique geographies of smallness and remoteness, resource insecurity, and more recently from the impacts of climate change. These vulnerabilities are often manifested in resource insecurity, significant imports, poor waste management, and the inability to develop eco...

Islands are tightly connected to globalized material flows, with specific constraints and vulnerabilities. They are not closed metabolic loops of consumption, production, and waste, favorable to the circular economy. Small islands allow the observation of the material outcomes of circulation, from overflowing dumpsites to marine debris washing up o...

https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/2836/ Islands are tightly connected to globalized material flows, with specific constraints and vulnerabilities. They are not closed metabolic loops of consumption, production, and waste, favorable to the circular economy. Small islands allow the observation of the material outcomes of...

Comment penser le métabolisme des grandes villes, ses infrastructures, ses déchets, ses conséquences sociales et écologiques ? Synthèse des différentes approches d'une question cruciale au temps du Capitalocène. À l’heure où la vulnérabilité des grands réseaux technico-économiques de la mondialisation a été révélée par la crise sanitaire (aéroport...

Abstract • Circular Economy (CE) has been emerging for the past decade as an economic alternate model, in opposition to the linear economy, in the public debate. It is now proposed as a potential new approach for a sustainable blue bioeconomy in Europe, although the concept is still uncertain in its real definition and scope. Seen as an "umbrella"...

The topic of "spatialising the urban metabolism" has met with growing interest among researchers and has grown significantly in recent years. According to Scopus, we have identified 438 published articles, the majority from 2010s. The scientific landscapes are varied and among 20 communities according to a bibiometric analysis. This topic can be un...

In a forthcoming publication (Bahers, Tanguy, and Pincetl 2020), we have shown that port cities are particularly interesting territories for studying urban metabolism. Transited through these port cities, flows of goods and energy are very important that cross the oceans to the regions concerned, causing a chain of pollution that extends local emis...

https://asmn.univ-nantes.fr/index.php?id=446 Des années 1960 à l’« écologisme des pauvres » défini en 2002 par Joan Martinez-Allier à partir de l’exemple des luttes environnementales menées par des classes populaires, un long chemin a été parcouru pour comprendre les relations entre justice sociale et justice environnementale. Il semble ainsi que l...

Introduction: The spatial dimension of the circular economy The paradigm of the circular economy, which is very much a trend these days, is assumed to provide a new vision of waste management, according to its concept promoters (Ellen MacArthur Foundation ). It intends to be the antithesis of the linear economy, which is structured in terms of th...

In Perspectives on Waste from the Social Sciences and Humanities. Opening the Bin (Editor Richard Ek and Nils Johansson), Cambridge Scholars Publishing , 2020, 978-1-5275-4674-5

This article belongs to the Special Issue The Metabolism of Islands https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/metabolism_islands The concept of island metabolism strives to implement the principles of social ecology at the island scale. It is, therefore, a question of analyzing the flows of materials and energy passing through the...

À l’heure où la production de déchets et leur recyclage deviennent une préoccupation de plus en plus importante, quel bilan faire à ce sujet à l’échelle d’un·e habitant·e de la Métropole ? Au-delà des déchets ménagers, cette planche s’intéresse à l’exportation de toutes les catégories de déchets, et à l’empreinte matérielle de la consommation de bi...

Des années 1960 à l’« écologisme des pauvres » défini en 2002 par Joan Martinez-Allier à partir de l’exemple des luttes environnementales menées par des classes populaires, un long chemin a été parcouru pour comprendre les relations entre justice sociale et justice environnementale. Il semble ainsi que les dimensions sociales et environnementales d...

Contribution au MOOC de l'IEDDEC "Economie circulaire : une transition incontournable"https://cours.edulib.org/courses/course-v1:EDDEC+EC-101+H2019/about

Highlights • A "political-industrial ecology" of energy metabolism is implemented and discussed • Article methods coupled quantitative and qualitative data to understand the politics of urban metabolism • Metabolic relationships between cities and their hinterlands are based on synergies and cooperation • Urban-rural metabolic relationships are als...

This work contributes to the field of investigation of island metabolism (Krausmann, Richter, et Eisenmenger 2014; Petridis et Fischer-Kowalski 2016) in a little explored aspect: the metabolic vulnerabilities of island environments. The article proposes a survey on the path of the analysis of the Material Flows Analysis (MFA) (Bahers, Barles, Duran...

We are pleased to announce the RCR annual awards for 2018! Congratulations to all award recipients! As always, we present the annual Excellence in Review Awards to recognize exceptional reviewers who provided excellent review services to RCR. The award recipients were nominated by RCR editors and selected by the editorial team. The 2018 Excellence...

This paper highlights the methods and parameters used to define and design a reference scenario to be compared with an industrial symbiosis (IS) scenario using the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. To this end, a critical review was conducted of 26 peer‐reviewed papers using LCA in the field of IS. The analysis focuses on the definition and...

This work contributes to the urban agriculture field of investigation in one aspect that remains lightly explored: the coupling of material and social dimensions in urban metabolisms studies. This paper offers an urban metabolism path investigation, which aims at confronting the flows of organic waste, the practices of the citydwellers and the stra...

During the Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012, United Nations defined the ‘’water-food-energy nexus’’ as a key element in today’s process of greening the economy or its transition towards the circular economy. The analysis of interactive linkage between these sectors is certainly new field of research. (Biggs, et al, 2015). The report by...

During the Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012, United Nations defined the ''water-food-energy nexus (WECF)'' as a key element in today's process of greening the economy or its transition towards the circular economy. The analysis of interactive linkage between these sectors is certainly new field of research (Biggs, et al, 2015). The rep...

Ce travail contribue au champ d’investigation du métabolisme territorial sous un aspect peu exploré : les vulnérabilités métaboliques des milieux insulaires. Il propose une enquête à partir de l’analyse des flux de matière et d’énergie de l’île de Ndzuwani (Anjouan – Comores), qui vise à dépasser les contraintes liées aux activités informelles et a...

Regards externes de Stephan Kampelmann (Université Libre de Bruxelles) et Jean-Baptiste Bahers (Chercheur CNRS - Université de Nantes) sur le programme d'économie circulaire BeCircular. Sur base des évaluations de Jean-Baptiste Bahers et Franck Scherrer (Université de Montréal), la Chaire en Economie Circulaire et Métabolisme Urbain a proposé deux...

Although urban metabolism has been a subject of renewed interest for some years, the related studies remain fragmented throughout the world. Most of them concern major cities (megacities and/or national capitals) and, more rarely, intermediate, medium‐sized or small cities. However, urbanization trends show that together with the metropolization pr...

This article underlines the circular economy’s issues related to the framework of urban metabolism, focusing the organic material and waste chain. It is about of combining the analysis of flows and their governance. It is based on a case study : the organic waste and material stream of Rennes. In this article, we have focused our analysis on bio-wa...

This article underlines the circular economy’s issues related to the framework of urban metabolism, focusing the organic material and waste chain. It is about of combining the analysis of flows and their governance. It is based on a case study : the organic waste and material stream of Rennes. In this article, we have focused our analysis on bio-wa...

Industrial excess heat recovery has become a popular industrial ecology initiative because of its potential to replace fossil energy, especially for district heating applications. However, while a large body of literature addresses the feasibility of industrial excess heat use under an economic perspective [1-2], its environmental benefits are gene...

Waste management regulation is generally impacted by Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) implementation, such as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). The main goal of this article is to explicit the WEEE chain and flows using the material flow analysis (MFA) method and to contribute to the understanding of the EPR implementation in...

L’économie circulaire est une notion fortement mise en avant par un ensemble de politiques publiques françaises depuis la conférence environnementale de 2013. Introduite dans le débat national à partir de 2006(Fan, Bourg, et Erkman 2006)sa définition reste incomplète et critiquée (Buclet 2015; Arnsperger et Bourg 2016; Ghisellini, Cialani, et Ulgia...

Si l’économie circulaire structure aujourd’hui le débat public autour des questions de maîtrise des flux de matière dans le cadre de la transition socio-écologique, la question de sa territorialité n’est pas véritablement posée publiquement. L’une des façons de comprendre ces enjeux est de cibler l’un des trois grands domaines qui la composent, le...

https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/entendez-vous-leco/entendez-vous-leco-lundi-20-novembre-2017 "Dans une société industrialisée et développée comme la notre, l'économie peut-elle nous aider à penser le recyclage et la diminution de la production de déchet ? C'est vers cette piste que tend l'économie circulaire, piste que nous allons explorer a...

La revue Flux édite dans ce numéro double des articles sur la thématique du retour de la notion de proximité et de son expression à travers les services urbains en réseau. L’objectif est de comprendre la diversification de ses modalités, dans des perspectives déconcentrées, composites, multiples ou encore dé-linéarisées. La proximité, notion pendan...

Intro Ce texte se nourrit d'une recherche sur l'organisation territoriale de la récupération et du recyclage des déchets d'équipements électriques et électroniques (DEEE) en Midi-Pyrénées et à Toulouse (Bahers, 2012). Comme nous l'avons déjà expliqué dans ce travail, nous considérons les DEEE comme des objets socio-techniques difficilement manipula...

Publié dans France Forum - n°66 - Juillet 2017 Il est une question méconnue du grand public, pourtant féru de dystopies : comment vivre dans un monde beaucoup plus peuplé, mais avec nettement moins de ressources matérielles ? L'économie circulaire, qui fait florès en ces temps, porte le message d'une vision renouvelée de la gestion des ressources e...

Cette introduction restitue les articles du numéro thématique face à l’hypothèse de la proximité, afin d’éclairer les processus de transformation que rencontrent ces réseaux urbains. Comment évoluent les systèmes urbains dans leur prise en compte des différentes formes de proximité (géographiques, sociales, organisationnelles, etc.) ? Est-ce un déf...

les changements environnementaux globaux, Paulo Ferrão, professeur en génie mécanique à l’Institut supérieur technique de Lisbonne, et John E. Fernández, professeur associé et directeur du programme des technologies de construction au MIT, proposent un ouvrage utile et important. 2 Le départ de leur réflexion porte sur la mondialisation, qui est c...

Qu’est-ce qui se cache derrière la curieuse métaphore biologique d’« éco-organisme » ? Il ne s’agit pas de cellules vivantes d’optimisation énergétique, ni d’organisations militantes écologiques. Chaque consommateur.trice les a pourtant rencontrés indirectement au travers de campagnes de promotion du tri ainsi que des éco-taxes, dont les symboles s...

The proximity principle is one of the main obligations in the European and French regulations regarding waste management. However, this principle isn’t really implemented as it isn’t well defined in the law. Proximity is also linked to the new consensual concept of circular economy, which highlights the local scale (even if the local is not mention...

Le principal objectif de cet article est d’étudier le cadre institutionnel d’une filière de gestion des déchets par une entrée sur les modalités de gouvernance des réseaux d’acteurs, afin de comprendre comment expliquer les différences d’adaptation des systèmes sociotechniques de gestion des DEEE (Déchets d’Équipements Électriques et Électroniques)...

The general aim of this research is to explain the differences of adaptation of the French and Italian e-waste management regimes to the European WEEE directive. It draw insights on the concept of institutional chain by examining waste governance at different levels. In particular, this article focuses on e-waste management at urban scale, carrying...

This work focuses on the treatment of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEE). It reveals how the local recycling system contributes to the development of territorial ecology. This work shows how WEEE’s management interacts with European and French legislative frameworks. Based on a material flow analysis of the recovery-recycling chain, th...

Legislative frameworks of waste management are impacted by resource management and industrial ecology's paradigm. Considering this issues through engineering science, social sciences and regional planning, this work focuses on technical, political and spatial dimensions of recovery-recycling chain. It aims at analyzing its regional development, thr...

In : LOUBET (Lilian) dir., NAVEREAU (Brice) dir. Quelles stratégies des acteurs locaux face à la recomposition des politiques publiques territorialisées. Toulouse : Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail/Écoles doctorales, 2009. 77 p. (Études & Travaux de l'école doctorale TESC [Temps, espaces, sociétés, culture] ; 13)