Today, humanity is experiencing an "urban age", and therefore issues of good management of energy consumption and energy spent on utilization of waste in cities are becoming particularly acute. In this regard, the working group of the World Energy Council proposed a concept of the "energy balance" of the urban environment. This concept was that the energy produced should cover the energy consumed. Metabolism of the urban environment is so hot and so rarely studied by urban planners. This condition is linked first with the fact that metabolism is nothing more than a network of exchange of physical, energy resources and information. This is the real point of meeting the natural, technological, social, economic processes and their transformation into one another. Metabolism is the most important tool for knowing the real mechanics of the movement of resources in such a complex system as the urban environment. The content of the article is an analysis of significant energy and material flows characterizing the metabolism of the urban environment. We considered in the article a new energy paradigm. This paradigm will help in carrying out research in such areas as reducing the burden on the state of the environment, reducing environmental problems and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Methods and models of metabolic processes in the urban environment will allow to implement in practice the concept of sustainable development of the urban environment, which is the development of the teaching V. Vernadsky about the noosphere.