Historically, the primary source of productivity growth has been increased labour efficiency, which has been largelyachieved through mechanisation (Pasinetti, 1981). Whether labour productivity growth necessarily decreases environmen-tal efficiency remains unclear. For instance, while a study of the Italian industrial sector identified an inverted U-shapedrelationship between these variables at the national level (environmental intensity increases in the early stages of labourproductivity growth before declining) (Mazzanti and Zoboli, 2009), this correlation does not hold for global pollutants suchas greenhouse gases (Tamiotti et al., 2009). Indeed, as Suri and Chapman (1998) point out, absolute decoupling of economicgrowth from environmental impact has generally resulted from transferring environmental externalities to the global South.