Everyone has the right to a good quality of life, and reproductive rights matter in their own right. UNEP reports that global natural-resource extraction tripled over the past five decades. It links this trend to infrastructure expansion and high material consumption, especially in upper-middle- and high-income countries. The environmental impacts of resource use are shaped by how materials are extracted, produced and consumed—and by unequal levels of consumption.

Planet under pressure

The UN recently released its Global Resources Outlook 2024, and its message is clear – we’re consuming more resources than the Earth can sustainably provide, with demand set to rise further.

According to the Global Footprint Network, humanity is using up natural resources, such as food, water, land, 1.7 times faster than the planet can regenerate – the equivalent of using the resources of 1.7 earths.

Global resources outlook

The UN Environment Programme’s Global Resources Outlook 2024 reports that material use has increased more than three times over the last 50 years and continues to grow by an average of more than 2.3 per cent per year. Built environment and mobility systems are the leading drivers of rising material demand, followed by food and energy systems.

Over the past twenty years, affluence explains 40 percent of the global increase of material extraction, while population contributed to 27 per cent. Technology is found to only mitigate global material extraction by five per cent.”

Global Resources Outlook, 2024

Despite optimistic rhetoric from Silicon Valley, green technology will not be the miracle solution to reduce the strain of our demand. Rather, it’s predicted that a transition to green technologies is likely to place an even greater demand on virgin materials such as lithium, gold, and copper, to be used in electronic components.

The Population Factor

UNEP’s report identifies population growth as the main driver of increased material use in Africa and West Asia. Globally, it attributes 40 per cent of the increase in material extraction over the past 20 years to affluence and 27 per cent to population. These findings describe resource-use patterns; they do not make people’s reproductive choices a policy tool.

UNEP identifies the built environment and mobility systems as leading drivers of material demand, followed by food and energy systems. The report also points to unequal levels of material use between high-income and low-income countries.

UNEP’s report calls for changes to resource-use systems. Population Matters supports reproductive rights and bodily autonomy as ends in themselves; people’s reproductive decisions are not a resource policy.

Access to reproductive healthcare and education matters because people’s rights and choices matter in their own right. Voluntary family planning services must never be treated as instruments for managing resource demand or demographic outcomes.

Resource policy should address the systems and patterns that drive material demand while protecting rights and supporting human wellbeing. Reproductive rights and voluntary family planning are ends in themselves, never tools for changing population or resource demand.

Breaking Point

A projected 60 per cent growth in resource use by 2060 could derail efforts to achieve not only global climate, biodiversity, and pollution targets but also economic prosperity and human well-being.”

Global Resources Outlook, 2024

UN DESA’s 2024 population projection estimates 9.6 billion people in 2050. UNEP separately projects that material extraction could rise by almost 60 per cent by 2060 compared with 2020 levels if current trends continue. These projections concern different measures; the population estimate does not show that resource demand cannot be reduced.

UNEP calls for policy action to change how resources are used. Population Matters supports reproductive rights and bodily autonomy as ends in themselves; we do not treat population growth, fertility or people’s reproductive decisions as targets for resource policy.

Growing Demand

The report outlines that rising resource demand is also due to a rise in global living standards. This should be celebrated as it means that millions of people have been lifted out of poverty.

However, the expanding global middle class is also adopting the high-consumption patterns widespread in the Global North, such as a transition to more heavily meat and dairy-based diet.

The environmental impact of agriculture cannot be underestimated, with almost 75% of land-related biodiversity impacts coming from agriculture, driving wildlife extinctions due to habitat loss.

Animal-based farming causes more biodiversity loss than any other form of agriculture. This is due to the large amount of land that is required to be cleared to provide grazing space to cattle, with the Amazon rainforest facing severe deforestation due to cattle ranches.

The report outlines that a transition to a more plant-based diet as well as reducing food waste, can decrease the land needed for food production by five percent compared to 2020 levels. This reduction of pressure on land, would ensure more natural ecosystems can be left for conservation and to act as climate change barriers.

Overconsumption

It’s vital that everyone is given the adequate resources they need, however our current global economic and social systems steer us toward high-consumption lifestyles – consuming far more resources than we need.

Material resource extraction could increase by almost 60% from 2020 levels by 2060, from 100 to 160 billion tonnes – far exceeding what is required to meet essential human needs for everyone.”

Global Resources Outlook, 2024

A rise in global living standards has meant an increasing rate of urbanisation. Increased population density in urban areas places a higher demand for resources such as water, energy, food, and transport. City-dwellers also tend to use more electronic devices resulting in higher energy usage, eat more processed food, as well as produce more waste.

To satisfy global demand each person now uses on average 13.2 tonnes of materials per year, this up from an average of 8.4 tonnes per person fifty years ago.

The global economic systems all work on a profit-maximisation order, encouraging us to buy more and more, ignoring the fact that resources are already strain and driving environmental degradation.

Impacts of a Global Economy

Whilst the UK government may announce that we have successfully reduced our emissions, that only applies to territorial emissions (carbon emissions produced in the UK), and disguises the fact that consumption-based emissions are on the rise.

Through global trade, high-income countries, such as the UK, offshore their industry and displace the corresponding environmental impacts to other countries.

High-income countries, use six times more materials per capita and are responsible for ten times more climate impacts per capita than low-income countries.”

Global Resources Outlook, 2024

The iCon report further outlines how marketing, business practices, and a lack of environmental awareness amongst the public is encouraging us to buy more even as resources dwindle, and environmental impacts worsen.  

We Must Reduce Demand

The Global Resources Outlook 2024 is a stark warning to world leaders, that humanity’s demand is breaching planetary boundaries.

A fair response to resource pressures must address consumption patterns, inequality and the systems shaping material demand, while protecting rights and supporting human wellbeing. Reproductive rights, bodily autonomy and voluntary family planning are ends in themselves.

By adopting a more plant-based diet, or simply buying fewer material goods, one can reduce their material consumption whilst retaining the same quality of life.

When it comes to the resource crisis, less for us, means more for the planet and a healthier environment for all.