Extreme wealth costs the Earth
• The effect of lavish lifestyles on the environment needs to be understood
Many people spend their whole lives striving to be rich. Not having to worry about money and splashing it on designer clothes, chains of diamonds and private planes and yachts is regarded by some as the ultimate dream.
But a life like this comes at more of a cost than we realise. To coincide with the 2017 World Economic Forum, Oxfam published a report that claims the eight richest people in the world control the same wealth as half of the world’s population.
A vital debate certainly – and yet not the only one that needs to be aired.
We know that “wealthy” countries in Europe, North America and parts of Asia have higher per-capita environmental burdens than poorer countries and that the people of the developed world are living beyond the biophysical boundaries — the limits of the environment — in order to do so. But those at the top-income levels of these countries are practising lifestyles with even higher environmental consequences, enabled by their wealth.
In an average mature economy such as the UK’s, the ecological footprint is 6.69 global hectares per person. That means if everybody in the world had this lifestyle, we would need 3.7 planet Earths to support us all. Yes, there are people who are living with a smaller footprint, but that is not a life the majority are striving for.
The wealthy few who embrace luxurious and extravagant lifestyles impose a great burden on the environment because they acquire so many possessions and then use them in particularly profligate ways. Many have private jets and superyachts.
Those of us who are not in the elite minority could just be envious of those with affluent lifestyles. Or maybe many of those at the top have been deflecting or otherwise containing the debate, side-stepping it as they are so often accused of doing with taxation.
WE COULD BE DANGEROUSLY UNDERESTIMATING THE DAMAGE A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE ARE DOING
may even be that we all ignore the environmental consequences because modern society sees the jet-set lifestyle as one to aspire to, not denigrate. Perhaps all of us have some guilt in the knowledge that we, too, have recklessly extravagant elements to our lives and that these may be rather difficult to change.
The luxury consumption and sustainability debate is one that Plato had back in 380BC. But then, the threats of climate change and other environmental issues were not so pressing. Now, the future of the planet relies on humans worldwide creating policies to mitigate our own environmental burdens. But by targeting those affluent lifestyles that are doing more ecological damage, we might be able to tackle the disproportionate cost.
However, it is not as easy as saying we need to limit how many mansions one person owns; there are several components to the ecological burdens of wealth. Neither is this something that can be expressed simply by looking at aboveaverage carbon emissions — although that certainly is one important dimension.
Take a look at this example: the annual average personal carbon footprint was 7.3 tonnes in 2010 and yet the estimated sustainable footprint we should all have by 2050 is 1.5 tonnes per annum.
A Learjet private plane, flying on one trip from Aspen, Colorado, to San Francisco — 1,387km — would, according to our calculations, have CO² emissions of 4,411.8kg. By contrast, driving the average car 10,000km over a year would emit about 1,600kg of CO².
But to live an affluent lifestyle, one does more than hop on a jet. There are the houses, cars, boats, clothes, jewellery, techIt nology — money is no object so there is no limit to the amount of objects one can possess.
You might be wondering how simply owning a lot of things can damage the environment. One way to understand this is through the ecological rucksack concept.
This measures the total quantity in kilograms of materials moved from nature to create a product or service, minus the actual weight of the product. Aluminium, for example has a rucksack factor of 85:1, so 85kg of material is required to make 1kg of aluminium.
Diamonds, on the other hand, have a factor of 53,000:1.
Although we all know what a standard lifestyle of the rich looks like nowadays, in truth the ecological footprint is largely unknown beyond the individual acts we can analyse. We could be dangerously underestimating the damage a handful of people are doing to the environment and not properly mitigating it.
This is not just a call for research into affluent lifestyles; we must name and shame those who are being reckless with the environment for the sake of themselves and instigate policy action to stop them.
The eight billionaires might not account for half the world’s environmental problems — and perhaps they do a lot of good, too — but the ecological burdens they create are surely greater than eight subsistence farmers in India. And it is about time we knew just how much more damage they are doing.
Wells is professor of business and sustainability at Cardiff University and Touboulic is assistant professor at the University of Nottingham. This article first appeared on www.theconversation.com