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Why can’t we consume unchecked?��Professor Aimee Ambrose

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Environmental impacts (production/consumption)

The footprint of production and consumption, WWF (2021)

Our consumption choices – small or large – have these impacts or deplete these resources, here and elsewhere.

Consumer expenditure remains the largest single contributor to UK emissions, at 25% of total UK GHG emissions in 2022.

Office for National Statistics, (2023)

The value of goods imported to the UK increased by 32% in 2022, continuing an upward trajectory

Office for National Statistics, (2023)

In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, we know that in the UK, consumption of goods and services is our largest single contributor to GHG emissions, accounting for a quarter of all emissions.

GHG emissions are a big part of the picture but as this WWF helps to convey, every act of consumption causes a range of impacts either here or increasingly, elsewhere in the world.

This diagram highlights well known impact of consumption such as GHG emissions, and air pollution but also highlights lesser known consequences of production and consumption including soil degradation, water shortage, deforestation, chemical pollution and so on. There are thresholds we can’t afford to cross in relation to the level of these impacts, if we want to survive and thrive as a species and we’ll come on to look at these thresholds shortly.

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Why can’t we consume unchecked?

Earth can only support so many people whilst remaining safely habitable (consensus ~8 billion).
How many people it can support depends how much each person consumes.
Various concepts are used to express these limits: carrying capacity, planetary boundaries, Earth overshoot etc.

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A planet of high consumers

Global society increasingly aspiring to consume more.
Consumer class: a person able to buy goods and services beyond those that satisfy basic needs.
Half of the global population currently falls into the ‘consumer class’ (spending at least $12 a day) and by 2031, this is likely to rise to 5 billion people.

Source: World Data Lab, 2024

‘Conspicuous consumption by the wealthy is the cause of a large proportion of emissions in all countries’....‘vital dimensions of human well-being correlate with consumption, but only up to a threshold’. (IPCC, 2022)

The evidence is absolutely clear that climate change is a problem created by the consumption of the most wealthy globally – who are primarily found in Western societies and that includes some of us, as we’ll go on to discuss. Other countries are looking for a way of life with less economic struggle, less exploitation, better health and appear to aspire to emulate the richest countries in the world and their consumerist cultures, as a perceived route to a better life.

We are on a trajectory where the entirety of global society aspires to become a high consumer. And as we see played out in COP negotiations, emerging economies see that developed economies have consumed and polluted unchecked, so why shouldn’t they be able to access the perceived benefits of this too.

We see these trends reflected in the growth of the what’s known as the consumer class which is defined by the ability to purchase goods and services that go beyond basic needs. The consumer class is growing rapidly – accounting for half of the world’s population and projected to rise to 5 billion people by 2031.

Poverty is deeply damaging so we should not be trying to restrict expansion of the consumer class amongst impoverished groups and regions, instead we need to tackle to overconsumption of the wealthiest to create greater resource equity.

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What’s too much? What’s enough?

“Those powering large homes filled with devices, owning multiple vehicles driven often, flying frequently, eating meat rich diets, owning a wide range of consumer goods, and acquiring new ones regularly.” (Ambrose et al., 2024).

Plus, investing in high carbon interests.

“A minimum standard of living in the UK today includes, but is more than just, food, clothes and shelter. It is about having what you need in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society.” (Minimum Income Standard, Loughborough University)

IPCC (2021): ‘vital dimensions of human wellbeing correlate with consumption, but only up to a threshold’.

‘There may be tipping points, where high consumption decouples from wellbeing.’ Ambrose et al (2024)

It can be hard to think beyond accepted norms to understand what a high consuming lifestyle looks like in daily life in a particular context, which is something that myself and colleagues have tried to articulate, describing it as. READ QUOTE.

But what is more difficult is to define what sustainable consumption looks like on a day to day basis. Ultimately the ecological limits of the planet determine what is possible- the challenge is to ensure equitable distribution of resources within those limits.

The work of the Minimum Income Standard team at Loughborough University remind us though that what is sufficient is not just about meeting basic needs but is also about maintaining social inclusion and what is required for this will vary between contexts.

Wellbeing is paramount in all of this, and as the IPCC acknowledge, it’s a primary function of consumption to enable wellbeing. READ QUOTE.

In line with this, my team hypothesise that there are tipping points....

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Planetary boundaries

The planetary boundaries concept presents a set of nine planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come.

We have now crossed six.

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The Great Acceleration is the term that John McNeill used to describe the dramatic increase in human activity and its impact on the Earth's systems since the C mid-20^th^.

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We’re not all equal contributors

Globally, the richest 10% of households are responsible for 49% of GHG emissions..
An income of min. £74,000 pa puts you in that bracket.
...50% of the global population in lower income brackets accounted for just 8% (Kartha et al, 2020)
But vast inequality also exists within developed countries and cities.

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6/7/2024

The ‘champagne glass’ of global carbon inequality in 1990 and 2015 (Kartha et al, 2020)