Kai Whiting is a sustainability researcher and former F.R.S.–FNRS postdoctoral researcher associated with the Urban Metabolism Lab. His work connects social metabolism, industrial ecology, resource efficiency and human wellbeing, asking how flows and stocks of energy and materials are converted into services that satisfy human needs.

He contributed to the development of a social-metabolism framework integrating energy, material and ecosystem services. His research on the resource-service cascade provides a common conceptual structure for understanding the functions resources perform in society rather than assessing them only by origin or quantity. He has also published on material services, mineral-resource depletion, exergy, circularity and sustainable consumption, including work informed by environmental ethics. This combination of biophysical analysis and normative inquiry supports a broader understanding of urban sustainability in which lower resource use is evaluated alongside service provision, social needs and human wellbeing.