Well-defined terminology is of outmost importance to Material Flow Analysis (MFA). In many instances, data and terms comes from various sources and scientific disciplines depending on the objectives of an MFA study. It is up to the individual practitioner to interpret them and allocate them to the right reference point of an MFA system.

The MinFuture glossary includes a set of terms that are frequently used in MFA, including terms often used by MFA practitioners , which can cause confusion in other disciplines.

The MinFuture project has also developed a set of key monitoring principles that work as a guideline to terminology used within the MFA community and by other disciplines. These principles are mainly related to systems and data, the two bottom components of the MinFuture pyramid, which provide the foundation of MFAs. The monitoring principles aim to improve our understanding of the meaning of certain data points and to avoid misinterpretation. Additional information about the monitoring principles can also be found in deliverable 2.2 Synthesis report: Challenges, systems and data and deliverable 5.1 The MinFuture framework.