A few companies have conducted environmental audits based on this method. Regional application gives valuable insight into the sustainability of industry in natural units such as watersheds or atmospheric basins. Mapping sources, processes of transformation, and sinks in a region offers a systemic basis for public and corporate action. Industrial systems are often very dissipative, leading to materials concentrations too low to provide value but high enough to pollute. IM provides a framework for developing direct measures of community sustainability.
Dissipative use is where materials are degraded, dispersed, and lost in the course of usage.
Industrial metabolism studies have tended to focus on flows of materials. The method is also useful in analysis of energy and water flows. This basin is probably the most heavily industrialized region in the world. The study examined sources of pollution and pathways by which pollutants end up in the river for the whole basin. Materials studied include cadmium, lead, zinc, lindane, PCBs, nitrogen and phosphorous.