Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH
Volume 26, Issue 1, Pages 11-36Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/09603123.2015.1007841
Keywords
material consumption; green economies; sustainable behaviours; green exercise; health costs; well-being; obesity; mental health; loneliness; physical inactivity
Funding
- University of Essex
- University of Exeter
- NHS Sustainable Development Unit
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Increases in gross domestic product (GDP) beyond a threshold of basic needs do not lead to further increases in well-being. An explanation is that material consumption (MC) also results in negative health externalities. We assess how these externalities influence six factors critical for well-being: (i) healthy food; (ii) active body; (iii) healthy mind; (iv) community links; (v) contact with nature; and (vi) attachment to possessions. If environmentally sustainable consumption (ESC) were increasingly substituted for MC, thus improving well-being and stocks of natural and social capital, and sustainable behaviours involving non-material consumption (SBs-NMC) became more prevalent, then well-being would increase regardless of levels of GDP. In the UK, the individualised annual health costs of negative consumption externalities (NCEs) currently amount to 62 pound billion for the National Health Service, and 184 pound billion for the economy (for mental ill-health, dementia, obesity, physical inactivity, diabetes, loneliness and cardiovascular disease). A dividend is available if substitution by ESC and SBs-NMC could limit the prevalence of these conditions.
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