Overconsumption and the environment

See the WWF Discussion Paper here.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) of the Convention on Biological Diversity represents the most broad-ranging acknowledgement to date that governments and citizens must act to halt and reverse human impact on biodiversity loss. Amongst other things, the GBF explicitly acknowledges that the way we produce and overconsume goods is a major threat to biodiversity, bringing biodiversity thinking in line with the broader sustainability agenda (e.g., Sustainable Development Goal 12).

However, as we all know, a high-level commitment is one thing: knowing the size of the problem, making fundamental shifts in economic behaviour and robust and transparent monitoring are the key steps in making the necessary changes.

To support WWF International’s efforts to bring focus to the issue and encourage agreement about what indicators to use, Alauda was commissioned to conduct a rapid assessment of the footprints of OECD countries. We assessed the material footprint, biomass footprint, nitrogen and phosphorus footprints, ecological footprint, and imported deforestation footprints of OECD nations. This follows from similar work done for the UK, the Netherlands and Norway.

The results are striking: OECD nations are – with very a few exceptions – exceeding their fair share of planetary resource use dramatically across all footprints. For biomass (materials derived from agriculture forestry and fisheries) the average overshoot is three and a half times, for phosphorus and nitrogen (used in agriculture) more than seven times. In 2018, the agricultural goods they import are associated with around 631,000 hectares of deforestation, an area more than twice the size of the iconic Yosemite National Park.

There are clear pathways to reducing destructive production and overconsumption. Firstly, footprints have to embedded within national policy decisions at all levels. Secondly, food systems have to be transformed both in the means of production (including decoupling land use change and degradation of the marine environment from production) and the diets that drive pressure on the planet. Thirdly, a just transition will require international support for developing countries. These changes have the added benefit of significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.