The world’s population can thrive economically and sustainably, study finds

Ending mass human deprivation and providing good lives for the global population can be achieved while meeting ecological goals. This is the key finding of a new study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) and the London School of Economics and Political Science, published in World Development Perspectives.

Currently, around 80% of humanity lacks access to essential goods and services, living below the threshold for "decent living." Some believe that solving this issue requires massive global economic growth, which could worsen climate change and ecological damage.

However, the authors of the study challenge this view. They argue that human development does not need such a risky approach. By reviewing recent empirical research, they find that ending mass deprivation and providing decent living standards for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use. This leaves a significant surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments.

This approach ensures that everyone has access to nutritious food, modern housing, high-quality healthcare, education, electricity, induction stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigerators, heating/cooling systems, computers, mobile phones, internet, and transport. It could also include universal access to recreational facilities, theaters, and other public goods.

To achieve this future, development strategies should not focus on capitalist growth and increased aggregate production. Instead, they should increase specific types of production necessary to improve capabilities and meet human needs at a high standard. Universal access to key goods and services should be ensured through public provisioning and decommodification.

In the Global South, this means using industrial policy to increase economic sovereignty, develop industrial capacity, and organize production around human well-being.

In high-income countries, less-necessary production (like mansions, SUVs, private jets, and fast fashion) must be scaled down to enable faster decarbonization and help bring resource use back within planetary boundaries, as suggested by degrowth scholarship.

The authors show that the standard development strategy of increasing aggregate economic growth is inefficient for human development. In the current economy, capital invests in what is most profitable, rather than what is necessary for human development. Consequently, poverty may persist – or even increase – despite economic growth.

Moreover, the prices of essential goods like food and housing often rise faster than other prices, especially during privatization and market deregulation periods. This means people may have reduced access to essential goods even as their incomes increase. This problem can be addressed through decommodification, public provisioning, and price controls.

“If human well-being is the objective, it is not GDP (aggregate production in market prices) that matters, but whether people have access to the specific goods and services they need to live good lives. We need to distinguish between what is important for human well-being and what is not,” says Jason Hickel, researcher from ICTA-UAB and the UAB Department of Anthropology.

“Poverty is not an intractable problem that requires long timeframes and large increases in production that conflict with ecological objectives. The solution is straightforward. We can do it right now, by shifting production away from capital accumulation and elite consumption in order to focus instead on providing socially beneficial goods and services for all,” Hickel adds.

Co-author Dylan Sullivan, from ICTA-UAB and Macquarie University, states, “This research shows a post-growth economy could ensure universal access to the benefits of industrialization, all while leaving a substantial surplus of energy and resources for recreation, public luxury, and technological advancement. It’s really exciting to think about what we could do with this surplus, what kind of modernity we want to build.”

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