25% of the population of the world consumes 75% of its natural resources annually
One of the key issues that affect sustainability is over-consumption by a portion of the world’s population. At the moment about 25% of the world’s population live in relative comfort and consume a huge percentage of the world’s resources in the process. These are the people who live in large houses, often have at least one car per family, consume highly processed and packaged foods and luxury consumer goods like TVs, sound systems, air conditioners and so on. They have dozens of different sets of clothing and spend a lot on leisure activities. They create a huge amount of waste and pollution and consume more than half the natural resources the whole world uses every year.
A further 35% of the world’s population live in a more sustainable way where they do not over-consume. These people are characterised by living in small households, often built by using immediately available natural resources. They tend to use public transport or bicycles and eat less packaged and refined foods. They do not consume a lot of luxury goods and have only a few sets of clothing. They do not create a lot of waste.
The last 40% of the world’s population can be classified as under-consumers. These are people who most often live in rural areas in developing countries. They have only one or two sets of clothing, use animals or their feet as their main form of transport, often grow their own food and produce almost no waste. Other than basic items like flour, salt, sugar and oil, they consume very little that they do not produce themselves.
The people on this planet can survive on the available resources if all of us lived like the middle 35%. Unfortunately, life in the top 25% consumes about three quarters (75%) of the natural resources used annually. If we see overcoming poverty as moving everyone into the same sort of lifestyle as the over-consumers the earth will not be able to sustain development at that rate for very long.
It is very important for us as development workers to consider the impact of development on the environment and the sustainability of any development in terms of environmental and other factors.