"Emergy-emdollar evaluation is introduced including concepts and instructions for making calculations. Because of the universal hierarchy of energy, work on any scale of the environment or within the economy may be compared on a common basis by expressing products and services in emergy units. Emergy is the available energy (exergy) of one kind previously required to be used up directly and indirectly to make the product or service. Quality of anything is measured by the emergy per unit. Emergy measures real wealth, and emergy per person measures standard of living. Emergy per unit money measures real wealth buying power and is used to calculate emdollars, the economic equivalent. Whereas real wealth of environmental resources is inverse to monetary costs and prices, emdollars indicate their true contribution to the human economy. Emergy/money ratios vary greatly among nations, causing great inequities in foreign trade and investments. Public policy on any scale can be successful by maximizing emdollars. This article illustrates calculation and use of emergy-emdollars with an evaluation of shrimp aquaculture in Ecuador."

Emergy Accounting, Howard T. Odum, from Appendix C on Transformity [1996]