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Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological Perspective on
Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000.
Helmut Haberl, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich
Institute of Social Ecology, Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies (Klagenfurt - Graz - Vienna),
Klagenfurt University, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070 Vienna, Austria
Email adress of corresponding author:
[email protected]
Key words: Material flow analysis (MFA), Energy flow analysis (EFA), Human
appropriation of net primary production (HANPP), Society-nature interaction, Ecological
Economics, Sustainability.
Published as:
Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of
the Economy: A Socioecological Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000.
Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
http://epw.in/epw/user/loginArticleError.jsp?hid_artid=9983
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Abstract
This paper analyzes the development of humanity’s economic activities from 1700 to 2000
based on a socio-ecological perspective. Global growth of human population and production
in terms of monetary flows (GDP) are complemented with data that demonstrate the
ecological “embeddedness” of human economic activities. We assemble data drawn from the
literature and from unpublished work of the authors to draw a first, still sketchy picture of
major trends during the last 300 years. The analysis is based on three global regions, the
Industrial Core, East Europe and the Former Sovjet Union (FSU) and the Developing
Countries. The analysis is based on the socio-economic metabolism concept, in particular
material and energy flow accounting (MEFA). We discuss the global extraction of resources,
global data on the “energetic metabolism” of societies, and on the human appropriation of net
primary production (HANPP), an indicator of land-use intensity. Our findings suggest that
resource constraints as well as limits to the capacity of the biosphere to safely absorb
emissions and waste will not permit a global transition towards industrial society according to
the pattern currently observable in the Industrial Core.
Introduction
Focusing on the analysis of stocks and flows of money, (neo)classical economists have
derived an impressive body of theory, models, and methods for the analysis of economic
systems. This purely monetary, “chrematistic” approach has, however, so far not been
successful in adequately tackling the challenge of sustainability (Martinez-Alier, 1987). The
socio-economic metabolism approach (e.g., Ayres and Simonis, 1994, Matthews et al., 2000,
Fischer-Kowalski, 1998, Fischer-Kowalski and Hüttler, 1998, Weisz et al., 2006) has been
developed in the past decades as a means to account for society’s use of materials and energy
(Haberl, 2001) in a way that allows a description of economic processes in biophysical terms.
In this article we use the so-called MEFA (“materials and energy flow analysis”) framework
(Haberl et al., 2004), an integrated toolkit to derive a representation of biophysical aspects of
economic systems that is compatible with standard monetary economic statistics (e.g., the
SNA), to analyze the ecological “embeddedness” (Martinez-Alier, 1999) of socio-economic
activities.
Drawing from empirical research of the author and his colleagues in the last 15 years, the
paper presents a global perspective on the transition from the agrarian to the industrial mode
of subsistence. Changes in material and energy flows and their impacts on marine and
terrestrial ecosystems – measured as human appropriation of net primary production or
HANPP – in the last 200-300 years are discussed and contrasted with the standard “monetary”
representation in terms of GDP statistics.
Global economic development 1700-2000: a chrematistic
perspective
In this section we briefly discuss the development of the world economy as portrayed by the
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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most widely used, conventional (that is, monetary) economic indicator: Gross Domestic
Product (GDP). GDP measures the monetary value of all goods and services produced in an
economy in one year. Despite its well-known shortcomings, it is widely used as a measure of
economic activities due to its advantages, including the following: (a) GDP accounts are
meanwhile fairly standardized across countries and are widely used in policy discussions,
modeling and scientific analyses, (b) they can be cross-checked in three ways (Maddison,
2005): From the income side, GDP is the sum of wages, rents and profits, from the demand
side it is the sum of final expenditures by consumers, investors and government, and from the
production side it equals the value added of all sectors of the economy net of double-counting
(inter-industry deliveries).
This section is based on the work of a prominent historical economist, Angus Maddison
(2001), who used purchasing power parities to convert all GDP estimates to 1990
international Geary Khamis Dollars, probably one of the most reliable and informative
conversion methods in this context (Maddison, 2005). We use a simple, but nevertheless
informative breakdown of the world economy in three groups of countries:



The “industrial core” includes Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand (a group of countries denoted as “Western Offshoots” by Maddison, 2001)
and Japan.
The second group includes East Europe and the Former USSR (abbreviated E Europe
and FSU); that is, the formerly centrally-planned economies.
All other countries are lumped together in a group denoted as “developing countries,”
although we are aware that this group also includes fairly industrialized countries such
as Israel and South Africa or the oil producing countries of the Middle East as well as
the least-developed countries (the latter represent about 14% of the population of that
aggregate).
Figure 1 shows that world population grew by a factor of about 9.8 in the last 300 years.
Developing countries (which grew by a factor of 10.4) and East Europe/FSU (9.1) grew a bit
faster than the industrial core (7.6), but the differences in population growth between these
three large world regions are small compared to the differences in GDP growth. Total GDP
grew by a factor of 181 in the industrial core, a factor of 67 in East Europe/FSU and only 57
in the developing countries. Total global GDP rose by a factor of 91. Disparities in GDP
growth are even larger when GDP is expressed on a per-capita basis: Per-capita GDP grew by
a factor of 24.4 in the industrial core, which was much faster than the global average of 9.3,
whereas growth lagged behind in developing countries (5.5) and East Europe/FSU (7.4). Note
that the decline in per-capita GDP in East Europe/FSU most probably reflects two separate
processes which are difficult to disentangle (Maddison, 2005): (a) A real reduction in GDP
following the breakdown of communism and (b) changes in the accounting system that are
hard to correct. Although attempts at correcting the accounts have been made, comparability
of data for this region for the time period of 1920/50-1990 with GDP data derived from
standard SNA methods in other countries is still probably less than perfect.
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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a)
6.000
Developing countries
5.000
E Europe and FSU
Industrial core
Population [mio.]
4.000
3.000
2.000
1.000
0
1700
1750
1800
1850
1900
1950
2000
b)
35.000
GDP [billion 1990 Int. $/yr]
30.000
25.000
Developing countries
E Europe and FSU
Industrial core
20.000
15.000
10.000
5.000
0
1700
1750
1800
1850
1900
1950
2000
1900
1950
2000
c)
Per-capita GDP [1990 int. $/cap/yr]
25.000
Industrial core
E Europe and FSU
20.000
Developing
countries
15.000
Global average
10.000
5.000
0
1700
1750
1800
1850
Figure 1. Global population, total GDP and per-capita GDP 1700-2000. Monetary values are 1990 international
Geary-Khamis $, i.e. PPP corrected values. a) World population b) Global GDP c) Per-capita GDP. Source:
Maddison, 2001
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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Taken together, the data presented in Figure 1 corroborate the well-known picture that about
one quarter to one third of the world population has managed to escape poverty by embarking
on a process often called “industrialization” (a multi-faceted notion with different meanings),
while about two thirds to three quarters of the world population are in the midst of a transition
process from agrarian subsistence to industrial society – of course at various stages.
The world 2000: a socio-ecological perspective
This section analyzes the three large country aggregates introduced in the last section in a
multi-dimensional fashion. In order to demonstrate the ecological “embeddedness” (MartinezAlier, 1999) of economic activities we discuss biophysical dimensions of economic activities,
above all the use of materials, energy, and land. Table 1 gives an overview of the three
regions. The industrial core covers about 24% of the planet’s terrestrial surface (excluding
Antarctica) but is only inhabited by about 14% of the world population. Despite its limited
extent and population, about 53% of the global GDP are generated there. By contrast, the
developing countries cover 59% of the Earth’s surface, are inhabited by 79% of the world
population, but have only 41% of global GDP at their disposal.
Table 1. The world economy around the year 2000: monetary and biophysical indicators. All monetary values
are 1990 international Geary-Khamis $. Sources: Maddison, 2001, Schandl and Eisenmenger, 2006,
http://www.materialflows.net, Erb, Gaube, Krausmann, Gingrich, unpublished data.
Population Area
GDP
[109 heads] [106 km2] [1012 $/yr]
Industrial core 0.838
E Europe, FSU 0.412
Devel. countr. 4.658
Total
5.908
Data refer to [1998]
32.0
23.5
78.6
134.1
18.0
1.8
13.9
33.7
[1998]
Per-capita Resource
GDP
extraction
[103$/cap/yr] [109 t/yr]
Energy
use*
[1018 J/yr]
HANPP**
[Pg C/yr]
21.5
4.4
3.0
5.7
[1998]
268
68
283
618
[2000]
2.78
1.56
9.01
13.35
[2000]
19.9
5.4
28.3
53,6
[2000]
* “Energetic metabolism” (Haberl, 2001); i.e. including all biomass used by society.
** Excluding human-induced fires.
Overview
In order to describe resource extraction we here report figures on “Domestic Extraction” as
calculated in material flow accounts (see Eurostat, 2001 and Weisz et al., 2006 for
methodological details). According to these figures, the Industrial Core contributes 37% to the
global total, East Europe and FSU 10% and the developing countries 53% (Table 1). The
picture is similar when we look at energy use, which we here analyze based on the concept of
“energetic metabolism” (Haberl, 2001). In contrast to conventional energy balances that only
report on technical energy flows, we here include all biomass “metabolized” by society. The
vast majority of this biomass is used as feed for livestock or food for humans. We here report
the indicator “Domestic Energy Consumption”. With respect to energy use, the Industrial
Core’s share of the global total is 43%, that of East Europe and the FSU 11%, while the
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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Developing Countries have only 46% at their disposal.
In order to describe the intensity of land use on the territory of our three country aggregates
we use the “human appropriation of net primary production” or HANPP (Vitousek et al.,
1986). HANPP is an aggregate measure of the impact of land use on the availability of trophic
energy in ecosystems. It reveals what fraction of the biomass that would have been available
in the absence of land use is either foregone due to land use or harvested and thus diverted to
human uses. Here the picture is considerably different from the material and energy flow data:
The Industrial Core contributes only 21% to the global total, East Europe and the FSU 12%
and the Developing Countries 67%.
An analysis of gobal resource extraction
As the overall picture is rather similar for material and energy flows, we here only give a
more in-depth analysis of the resource extraction data. Figure 2 presents a highly aggregated
analysis of the resource extraction in the three world regions. Domestic extraction refers to
the total volume of resources extracted on the territory of the respective aggregate of
countries, accounted for as yearly mass flow [metric tons per year]. Four broad categories of
materials are distinguished: Biomass – that is, primarily plants harvested through agriculture
or forestry – accounted for as fresh weight, with the exception of grazed biomass which is
counted at a standardized water content of 14%. The category “ores” includes ores and
minerals used in industry, “construction” stands for mineral resources used for construction
purposes. “Fossil fuels” refers to crude oil, coal, lignite, peat and natural gas. The accounts
exclude water except for the water content of the above-mentioned materials. Material flow
data were taken from the literature (Schandl and Eisenmenger, 2006,
http://www.materialflows.net).
Figure 2 analyzes the global patterns in resource extraction. Note that not all of the resources
extracted within one of the world regions are necessarily consumed there, as trade plays an
increasing role (see next section). Because a consistent global database on domestic material
consumption is at present unavailable, we have to use this database. Figure 2a reports data on
the total volume of resources extracted, showing that biomass makes up a smaller part of the
resource extraction in the Industrial Core and East Europe and the FSU, whereas it plays a
larger role in the Developing Countries in relative terms. Figure 2b shows that this is so
despite the fact that per-capita biomass extraction is lower in the Developing countries. But
while the per-capita extraction of biomass in the Developing Countries is only about half of
that in the other two groups of countries, the per-capita extraction of minerals, ores and fossil
fuels is almost an order of magnitude smaller in the Developing Countries than in the
Industrial Core – in line with the notion that the transition from agrarian to industrial
metabolism is mainly based on “subterranean” resources (Sieferle, 2001, Fischer-Kowalski
and Haberl, 2007), both in terms of materials and energy. Figure 2c reports data on the
amount of resource extraction needed per unit of GDP produced, showing that the Industrial
Core is able to generate much more GDP per unit of resource extraction than the other two
world regions. East Europe and the FSU needs about three times more resources per unit of
GDP and even surpasses the Developing Countries. In terms of resource extraction per unit
area the Industrial Core is far above the global average and East Europe and the FSU far
below the average, a fact mostly explained by the low population density of the latter group of
countries.
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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30
Ores
20
Biomass
10
Total
Developing
countries
E Europe
and FSU
Industrial
core
0
Construction
Ores
10
Biomass
5
0
3,5
3,0
2,5
Fossil fuels
2,0
Construction
1,5
Ores
1,0
Biomass
0,5
Fossil fuels
700
Construction
600
Ores
500
Biomass
400
300
200
100
Total
Developing
countries
E Europe
and FSU
Industrial
core
0
Total
Developing
countries
E Europe
and FSU
Industrial
core
0,0
DE per unit area [t/km2/yr]
d)
DE per unit of GDP [t/1000$]
c)
Fossil fuels
15
Total
Construction
Developing
countries
Fossil fuels
40
20
E Europe
and FSU
50
25
Industrial
core
60
Domestic extraction per capita [t/cap/yr]
b)
Domestic extraction [Bill t/yr]
a)
Figure 2. Global resource extraction in the year 2000. a) Total extraction b) Extraction per capita and year, c)
extraction per unit of GDP, d) extraction per unit area and year. Sources: MOSUS data (www.materialflows.net),
Schandl and Eisenmenger, 2006, Maddison, 2001.
Land-use intensity: a HANPP perspective
Table 2 gives a more in-depth analysis of global HANPP patterns. NPP0, the productivity of
the potential vegetation – that is, the vegetation that would prevail in the absence of land use –
is an indicator for natural biomass production capacity of a region or, if expressed per unit
area, an indicator of fertility. Table 2 shows that NPP0 per unit area is almost identical in the
Industrial Core and in East Europe and the FSU, whereas that of the Developing Countries – a
group that also includes the tropical regions – is considerably higher. Total NPP0 per world
region thus reflects mostly each region’s share of total land area, but also the higher potential
productivity of the Developing Countries. HANPP aggregates two processes: (a) changes in
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
-8-
productivity resulting from land use, here denoted as NPPLC (productivity change resulting
from land conversion) and (b) harvest of NPP (NPPh), a figure that includes not only harvest
of commercial products (timber, grains, etc.), but also felling losses, un-used by products such
as straw, biomass grazed by livestock and similar items. A large NPPLC value indicates that
a region is not able to use the productive potential of its territory well, while small NPPLC
can be interpreted as a high efficiency of land use. Table 2 shows that the Industrial Core has
the most efficient land-use system, while East Europe and the FSU has the highest NPPLC, if
this indicator is expressed as a percentage of NPP0. Aggregate HANPP is similar in the
Industrial Core and in the Developing Countries (around 21% of NPP0; in absolute terms
HANPP per unit area is higher in the Developing Countries as they are also potentially more
productive) and lower in East Europe and the FSU. This has to do with the low population
density (i.e. abundance of land that is used very inefficiently). Per-capita HANPP is highest in
East Europe and FSU with over 4 tons of carbon per capita and year, whereas the Developing
Countries are below 2 tC/cap/yr. HANPP per unit of GDP varies grossly, with the Industrial
Countries at only 0.15 kg C/$, whereas East Europe and the FSU cause over 6 times as much
HANPP per unit of GDP.
Table 2. A breakdown of the global human appropriation (HANPP) of net primary production by world regions.
NPP0
[Pg C/yr]
NPPact
[Pg C/yr]
NPPh
[Pg C/yr]
[Pg C/yr]
NPPt
NPPLC
[Pg C/yr]
NPPLC%
[%]
HANPP*
[Pg C/yr]
HANPP%* [%]
NPP0/area
[gC/m2/yr]
HANPP/area [gC/m2/yr]
HANPP/cap [tC/cap/yr]
HANPP/GDP [kgC/$]
Industrial
core
East
EuropeDeveloping
and FSU
countries
Total
13.5
12.6
1.8
10.7
1.0
7.2%
2.8
20.5%
427
88
3.26
0.152
9.5
8.5
0.5
8.0
1.0
11.0%
1.6
16.4%
424
69
4.08
0.937
65.5
59.2
7.1
52.0
6.3
9.6%
13.4
20.4%
490
100
2.21
0.389
42.4
38.2
4.8
33.3
4.3
10.0%
9.0
21.2%
533
113
1.88
0.627
* excluding human-induced fires.
Note that these three large aggregates are considerably variable in themselves. For example,
the group of Developing Countries includes countries with extremely high HANPP values
such as Bangladesh (75%) or India (66%), countries with intermediate values such as China
(34%) or Indonesia (23%) as well as countries with very low HANPP (e.g., many central
African countries that are around 3-5%). In the Industrial Core, HANPP may also be very
high (e.g., the Netherlands with 63%, Denmark with 57%), intermediate (e.g., USA with 30%,
Japan with 23%) or low (e.g., 11% in Norway). Population density is obviously one important
determinant of this pattern.
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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Global trajectories 1700-2000
The previous section has shown that a biophysical view on humanity’s economic activities
generates a picture that is considerably different from the traditional “chrematistic”
perspective. This section assembles available global time series data of biophysical flows
associated with economic activities and relates them to population and GDP.
Resource extraction 1980-2002
Data on global material flows are still very incomplete. Fully-fledged material flow accounts
(MFA) currently exist only for a selected group of countries, most of which belong to the
Industrial Core (e.g., Matthews et al., 2000, Moriguchi, 2002, Weisz et al., 2006). We here
present resource extraction data (“domestic extraction” in the above-discussed sense) that
have been published on the internet (http://www.materialflows.net) and cover only a
relatively short period from 1980 to 2002. Figure 3 summarizes these data, showing that
resource extraction grew considerably in this 20 year period (+36%). Growth in biomass
extraction was lowest (+28%), whereas minerals (+40%) and ore (+56%) extraction grew
faster than average resource extraction (Figure 3a). Resource extraction fell in East Europe
and the FSU, while it grew slowly (+18%) in the Industrial Core and rapidly in the
Developing Countries, where resource extraction surged by 73% from 17 billion t/yr in 1980
to almost 30 billion t/yr in 2002 (Figure 3b).
Data are analyzed in Figure 4. Figure 4a shows that per-capita resource extraction is highest
in the Industrial Core where it fluctuates around 22-23 t/cap/yr without a clear trend. In the
Developing Countries, the domestic extraction of resources is growing steadily and slowly,
but at a level that is 4-5 times lower. In East Europe and the FSU, resource extraction grew
until the late 1980s and declined considerably after the fall of communism. Resource
extraction per unit of GDP is by far lowest in the Industrial Core, followed by the Developing
Countries. It declines throughout the whole period in the Industrial Core and in the
Developing Countries, whereas the pattern in East Europe and the FSU is unstable. This may
also have to do with the above-mentioned problems associated to the measurement of GDP
(and probably also material flows) in these countries. It seems that East Europe and the FSU
is the only region where no consistent decoupling trend between resource flows and GDP
took place; today this is the region with the by far largest resource extraction per unit of GDP,
while the level had been similar to that of the Developing Countries in 1980.
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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a)
60
50
Biomass
[billion t/yr]
40
Minerals
30
Metal ores
Fossil fuels
20
10
2000
1995
1990
1985
1980
0
b)
60
50
Developing countries
[Bill t/yr]
40
E Europe and FSU
Industrial core
30
20
10
2000
1995
1990
1985
1980
0
Figure 3. Global Resource extraction 1980-2002. a) Breakdown by material categories, b) breakdown by
regions. Data sources: http://www.materialflows.net
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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a)
Resources per capita [t/cap/yr]
25,0
20,0
Industrial core
15,0
E Europe and FSU
Developing countries
10,0
Global average
5,0
2002
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
0,0
b)
3,50
Resources per GDP [t/1000$]
3,00
2,50
Industrial core
2,00
E Europe and FSU
Developing countries
1,50
Global average
1,00
0,50
2002
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
0,00
Figure 4. Analysis of global resource extraction patterns. A) Resource extraction per capita and year, b)
Resource extraction per unit of GDP. Data sources: Maddison, 2001, http://www.materialflows.net
Biomass and energy: towards a 300 year perspective
In contrast to material flows, where data are currently restricted to extraction, high quality
data are now available for global energy flows for the period 1930-2000, including full
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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accounts of human use of biomass according to the above-mentioned principles for the time
period of 1910-2000. Biomass data were derived from data published by the FAO and its
predecessors (Krausmann and Gingrich, unpublished data). Data on fossil fuels, hydropower
and nuclear energy were taken from conventional energy statistics, above all those published
by the IEA. Methods and concepts used are discussed elsewhere (Haberl, 2001, Haberl et al.,
2006). In the period from 1910-2000, world population rose by a factor of 3.4 from 1.8 to 6.0
billion people. Growth was strongest in the Developing countries (factor 4.2) and much
slower in the Industrial core (2.2) and East Europe and the FSU (2.1).
We start with an analysis of biomass consumption, here expressed as the energy content
(gross calorific value) of the biomass used by humans. Figure 5a shows that the biomass
consumption of the Developing Countries are rising strongly and continuously throughout the
whole period, whereas biomass consumption of the Industrial Core and East Europe and the
FSU rises only about 2-fold and peaks in 1990 due to a reduction in biomass consumption in
East Europe and the FSU. In order to put these data in perspective it is useful to note that the
NPP0 value of 65.5 PgC/yr quoted above is approximately equivalent to an energy flow of
over 2400 EJ/yr; the current NPP of the terrestrial biota is a bit below 2200 EJ/yr. The data
presented in Figure 5a show, therefore, that humanity’s use of biomass has risen from about
3% of the Earth’s potential productivity to over 9% of that value, not counting biomass
destroyed by human-induced fires and some other human-induced flows (e.g., roots killed
through cutting trees). This does, however, not imply that HANPP has risen threefold: It
seems likely that changes in agricultural technology, above all the so-called green revolution,
have significantly raised the productivity of agro-ecosystems. HANPP data covering the
whole period are, at present, unfortunately not available.
The analysis of biomass flows per capita and year shows that the per-capita consumption of
biomass stays in a rather narrow range between 30 and 65 GJ/cap/yr in all regions throughout
the whole period of time. Note that this is about 10-20 times the amount of biomass energy
needed as food to adequately provide energy to support one individual human’s metabolism
(about 3.5 GJ/cap/yr; see Boyden, 1992). The data suggest that there seems to be an
“industrial” consumption pattern pertinent in both the Industrial Core and East Europe and the
FSU, characterized by a consumption level around 60 GJ/cap/yr, a high value that probably
results, among others, from a high level of consumption of animal protein. Note that
consumption may be considerably higher in some countries. For example, the USA consume
around 90 GJ/cap/yr, and some sparsely populated countries such as Finland even more
(Haberl et al., 2006). Biomass consumption dropped rapidly in East Europe and the FSU after
the breakdown of communism. In contrast to that “industrial” pattern, the Developing
Countries consume between 30 and 40 GJ/cap/yr. There, per-capita consumption of biomass
has declined from below 40 GJ/cap/yr in the first half of the period under consideration to
above 30 GJ/cap/yr in the period’s second half.
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
- 13 -
a)
250
Developing countries
200
E Europe and FSU
Industrial core
[EJ/yr]
150
100
50
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
1940
1930
1920
1910
-
b)
70
60
[GJ/cap/yr]
50
40
30
Industrial core
20
E Europe and FSU
Developing countries
10
Global average
1940
1930
1920
1910
-
Figure 5. Global biomass flows 1910-2000: Apparent consumption (domestic extraction plus import minus
export) of biomass a) total b) per capita. Data source: Krausmann, Gingrich, unpublished data.
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
- 14 -
a)
700
600
Developing countries
500
E Europe and FSU
[EJ/yr]
Industrial core
400
300
200
100
1980
1980
2000
1970
1970
1990
1960
1960
1950
1940
1930
-
b)
350
Industrial core
300
E Europe and FSU
Developing countries
[GJ/cap/yr]
250
Global average
200
150
100
50
2000
1990
1950
1940
1930
-
Figure 6. Humanity’s energetic metabolism 1930-2000. a) Aggregate energy flows b) Per-capita energy flows.
Data source: Krausmann, Gingrich, unpublished data.
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
- 15 -
Total energy use is analyzed in Figure 6, in which technical energy use was added to the
biomass flows reported in Figure 5. “Technical energy” here refers to fossil fuels, hydropower
and nuclear energy. Fossil fuels contribute most to this item (89% in the year 2000). Figure 6a
shows that aggregate energy use grew by a factor of 4.14 on the global average, but this
growth was unevenly distributed around the globe: Both the Industrial Core and East Europe
and the FSU grew by a factor of 3.7, whereas the Developing Countries grew by a factor of
4.9. That latter large growth was, however, mostly due to the rapid population growth of that
region: Per-capita availability of energy grew only by a factor of 1.44 in the developing
countries, a value not significantly different from the global average growth (1.46), whereas
per-capita energy use roughly doubled in both the Industrial Core and in East Europe and the
FSU.
Figure 6b shows that per-capita energy use grew slowly but steadily in the Developing
countries, a group of countries that, however, never in the whole period came anywhere near
the amount of energy used in the Industrial Core in 1930 (around 150 GJ/cap/yr). In the
Industrial Core, per-capita energy use followed a logistic function and about doubled from
around 150 GJ/cap/yr in 1930 to a bit lower than 300 GJ/cap/yr in 2000. East Europe and the
FSU seemed to catch up to the level of energy use of the Industrial Core, but experienced a
sharp decline following the collapse of communism in the early 1990s.
A global energy use timeseries for the last millenia has been constructed based on data on
energy use (Podobnik, 1999) and assumptions on per-capita biomass use (Haberl, 2006).
Based on the data presented in Figure 5 and elsewhere (Haberl et al., 2006, Dearing et al.,
2006), we here reconstruct global energy use 1700-1910 and combine these data with those
presented in Figure 6. The results are analyzed in Figure 7 that shows per-capita energy
throughput in the global average for 1700-2000 and in the three groups of countries 19302000. Figure 7b shows that energy use per unit of GDP declines consistently in the global
average as well as in the three groups of countries, with the exception of East Europe and the
FSU. The results for this group should, however, not be overinterpreted, because both GDP
data and biophysical data are highly uncertain and, for much of the period covered in
Figure 7, GDP data are not comparable to GDP data calculated using the usual, internationally
agreed standards (Maddison, 2005).
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
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a)
Energy use per capita [GJ/cap/yr]
350
300
250
Industrial core
E Europe, FSU
200
Developing countries
Average
150
100
50
2000
1950
1900
1850
1800
1750
1700
0
b)
90
Energy use per unit of GDP [MJ/$]
80
70
60
50
Industrial core
40
E Europe, FSU
30
Developing countries
20
Average
10
2000
1950
1900
1850
1800
1750
1700
0
Figure 7. Global energetic metabolism 1970-2000. a) per-capita domestic energy consumption, b) domestic
energy consumption per unit of GDP.
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
- 17 -
Discussion and conclusions
Data on humanity’s economic activities in terms of both monetary and biophysical flows are
only gradually becoming available. We have compiled the most recent data in this article in
order to give a first, rough-and-ready integrated picture of the development of the world
economy 1700-2000. The available database is still spotty and in many respects
unsatisfactory, and it certainly seems warranted to voice caveats against overinterpretation of
singular data points. Further data work to corroborate and refine the results presented here is
highly desirable (and under way). Nevertheless we believe that an overall picture is taking
shape. We highlight two issues: (a) humanity’s role as a globally relevant biogeochemical
force (Crutzen and Steffen, 2003), (b) implications for future development scenarios, (c)
implications for research, in particular for Ecological Economics.
With respect to the first issue, we note that our data clearly show that humanity’s socioeconomic metabolism has become a globally relevant component of the global
biogeochemical flows, supporting the notion that we have entered a new geological era
denoted by some as the “anthropocene” (Crutzen and Steffen, 2003). Humans consume about
10% of the biomass produced each year in terrestrial ecosystems. In addition, humans have
altered the biosphere’s productivity and introduced other changes that, taken together, result
in a global human appropriation of NPP of around 22-23% of total terrestrial NPP0 or around
30% of aboveground terrestrial NPP0 (Haberl, Erb, Gaube, Gingrich, Krausmann, Plutzar,
Bondau, Lucht, unpublished data). Meanwhile, human bodies account for nearly one third of
total global terrestrial vertebrate biomass and domesticated animals account for over two
thirds, whereas wild vertebrates make up only 3% of the total (Smil, 1991). The large-scale
combustion of fossil fuels releases around 6.3 Pg C/yr to the atmosphere (Sabine et al., 2004),
thus contributing strongly to the rising CO2 content of the atmosphere, one of the most
important drivers of global climate change. Ecological footprint calculations suggest that
humanity’s aggregate resource consumption currently exceeds the biosphere’s capacity to
reproduce these resources by at least 20-30% (Wackernagel et al., 2002).
At the same time, around three quarters of humanity still live in poverty. At present, percapita GDP in the Industrial Core is over 7 times higher than that in the Developing
Countries, per-capita resource extraction and energy use about 5 times higher. If we assume
that the roughly three quarters of the world population that currently live in the Developing
Countries would adopt the industrial consumption pattern this would be sufficient to raise
humanity’s energy consumption to a level between 1800 EJ/yr (assuming a world population
of 6 billion) and 2550 EJ/yr (based on a projected world population of 8.5 billion around
2050; Lutz et al., 2004). This amount of energy is roughly equal to the potential NPP of the
Earth’s terrestrial biota – an amount of energy surpassing the Earth’s regenerative capacity by
a factor of 3-5 if supplied by a similar mix of sources as today. This simple thought
experiment suggests that the Developing Countries will not be able to follow the trajectory the
Industrial Core has followed in the last two centuries, for two reasons: First, fossil fuel
reserves will not be sufficient (e.g., see the discussion about peak oil; Campbell, 2004,
Hallock et al., 2004), and second, the carbon emissions resulting from such a growth in fossil
fuel combustion would probably result in disastrous effects from climate change, maybe also
including runaway phenomena such as a dieback of tropical rainforests or a thawing of
permafrost that would release enormous amounts of carbon (e.g., Cox et al., 2000,
Friedlingstein et al., 2003).
Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
Perspective on Humanity’s Economic Activities 1700-2000. Economic and Political Weekly XLI(47), 4896-4904.
- 18 -
Our findings corroborate the view (Haberl and Krausmann, 2001) that efficiency increases in
terms of a reduction in resource use per unit of GDP may be beneficial, but are certainly not
sufficient to result in a reversal of current trends. For example, the data presented in Figure 7
show that the amount of energy required to produce a unit of GDP has fallen consistently in
both the Industrial Core and the Developing Countries as well as in the global average. In
other words, it rather seems to be the case that efficiency increases are rather fueling GDP
growth than helping to reduce aggregate resource consumption (Ayres and Warr, 2005). At
least so far, efficiency increases are more than compensated by increases in consumption
levels. Whether absolute dematerialization – i.e., a reduction in resource consumption in
absolute terms in a period of GDP growth – can be achieved over longer periods of time is a
question that still remains to be solved.
With respect to future research directions, we feel that the results presented here suggest that
(neo)classical economic concepts such as cost-benefit analysis of environmental policy
instruments or the quantification and internalization of “external costs” – although useful in
many respects – will not be sufficient as a conceptual basis for sustainability science. We
rather support the view that Ecological Economics and related approaches, in aiming to
contribute economic expertise to the sustainability discourse, would benefit from a socioecological perspective that envisages sustainability as the goal to promote social wellbeing (or
quality of life) and economic prosperity while at the same time avoiding to threaten vital
ecological assets, functions, or services. In order to support this ambitious, and so far elusive,
goal it will be necessary to complement and integrate monetary analysis with analyses of
stocks and flows of vital biophysical resources such as materials and energy and the
colonizing interventions into living systems such as genes, organisms or ecosystems they
entail. This will require the development of new, integrated models able to support a
fundamental reorientation and the development of new development models that might
eventually contribute to a transition towards sustainability.
Acknowledgements
This paper is based on empirical work conducted in various projects funded, among others, by
the Austrian Science Funds (http://www.fwf.ac.at), the Austrian Federal Ministry of
Education, Science and Culture (programmes “Cultural Landscapes Research” and
proVISION) and by the European Union (projects MATISSE and ALTER-Net). The paper
contributes to the Global Land Project (http://www.globallandproject.org). Several colleagues
have provided access to data and discussion, above all Nina Eisenmenger, Marina FischerKowalski, Karl-Heinz Erb, Veronika Gaube.
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Published as: Haberl, Helmut, Fridolin Krausmann, Simone Gingrich, 2006. Ecological Embeddedness of the Economy: A Socioecological
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