Dematerialization: Variety, caution, and persistence

Dematerialization, represented by declining consumption per GDP of energy or of goods, offers some hope for rising environmental quality with development. The declining proportion of income spent on staples as affluence grows, which income elasticity < 1.0 measures, makes dematerialization widespread. Further, as learning improves efficiency of resource use, the intensity of environmental impact per production of staples often declines. We observe that combinations of low income elasticity for staples and of learning by producers cause a variety of dematerializations and declining intensities of impact, from energy use and carbon emission to food consumption and fertilizer use, globally and in countries ranging from the United States and France to China, India, Brazil, and Indonesia. Because dematerialization and intensity of impact are ratios of parameters that may be variously defined and are sometimes difficult to estimate, their fluctuations must be interpreted cautiously. Nevertheless, substantial declining intensity of impact, and especially, dematerialization persisted between 1980 and 2006.