Small Island Developing States (SIDS) confront immense sustainability challenges due to heavy reliance on imports, tenuous resource availability, coastal squeeze, and reduced waste absorption capacity. The adverse effects of global environmental change, such as global warming, extreme events, and sea level rise, significantly hinder SIDS’ progress toward sustainable development. Between 1970 and 2020, SIDS collectively lost US$153 billion from extreme events, largely stemming from infrastructure damage and the consequent breakdown of critical services. Their limited resources and small size amplify the impacts of these challenges, positioning SIDS as “canaries in the climate change coal mine.” (Singh, et al., 2025).
This Working Group frames the vulnerability of small islands and coastal areas from the perspective of Socio-Metabolic Risk (SMR). SMR is defined as systemic risk associated with the availability of critical resources, the integrity of material circulation, and the equitable distribution of derived products and societal services within a socio-ecological system. We position SMR as a critical subset of the broader concept of systemic risk (Singh et al., 2022).
Our aims include: Advance scientific understanding, knowledge creation and sharing, support policy application, foster an inclusive community, induce positive tipping dynamics.
Meet the team!
Simron Singh
Simron J. Singh is a Professor and University Research Chair (URC) in the Faculty of Environment. Using the analogy that islands function like living organisms, he conducts socio-metabolic research to evaluate how small island economies utilize (or metabolize) materials, energy, water, and infrastructure. He investigates why and how these consumption patterns (or island metabolism) may accumulate “socio-metabolic risk” over time that increase their susceptibility to the challenges of climate change.
He is the founder and lead of the research program “Metabolism of Islands”, the Executive Secretary of the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE), chairs the inaugural board of Island Industrial Ecology within ISIE, and co-chairs RiskKAN, Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR), the World Weather Research Program (WWRP), and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP).
Tailin Huang
Working Group Updates
Trailer of Metabolism of Islands
This is a short trailer for the 34-minute documentary, which is embedded below.
Metabolism of Islands
This 34-minute documentary explores the provocative question: Can a small island truly achieve sustainability? Drawing on the powerful analogy that islands, much like living organisms, metabolize materials and energy to sustain their populations, the film reveals how unsustainable resource-use patterns—an “island metabolism” out of balance—can weaken resilience and amplify vulnerability to climate shocks.