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Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th
century.
Fridolin Krausmann*, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl
and Marina Fischer-Kowalski
Institute of Social Ecology, Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies, Alpen Adria Universität,
Klagenfurt, Graz Wien. Austria
Email address of corresponding author:
fridolin.krausmann@uni-klu.ac.at
Keywords: MFA, global materials use, economic development, material productivity,
industrial metabolism
Published as:
Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl
and Marina Fischer-Kowalski, 2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population
during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
2
Abstract
The growing industrial metabolism is a major driver of global environmental change. We
present an assessment of the global use of materials since the beginning of the 20th century
based on the conceptual and methodological principles of material flow accounting (MFA).
On the grounds of published statistical data, data compilations and estimation procedures for
material flows not covered by international statistical sources, we compiled a quantitative
estimate of annual global extraction of biomass, fossil energy carriers, metal ores, industrial
minerals and construction minerals for the period 1900 to 2005. This period covers important
phases of global industrialisation and economic growth. The paper analyses the observed
changes in the overall size and composition of global material flows in relation to the global
economy, population growth and primary energy consumption. We show that during the last
century, global materials use increased 8-fold. Humanity currently uses almost 60 billion tons
(Gt) of materials per year. In particular, the period after WWII was characterized by rapid
physical growth, driven by both population and economic growth. Within this period there
was a shift from the dominance of renewable biomass towards mineral materials. Materials
use increased at a slower pace than the global economy, but faster than world population. As a
consequence, material intensity (i.e. the amount of materials required per unit of GDP)
declined, while materials use per capita doubled from 4.6 to 10.3 t/cap/yr. The main material
groups show different trajectories. While biomass use hardly keeps up with population
growth, the mineral fractions grow at a rapid pace. We show that increases in material
productivity are mostly due to the slow growth of biomass use, while they are much less
pronounced for the mineral fractions. So far there is no evidence that growth of global
materials use is slowing down or might eventually decline and our results indicate that an
increase in material productivity is a general feature of economic development.
Introduction
The 20th century was characterised by an unprecedented growth in population and in the size
of the global economy: During the last one hundred years, global population quadrupled to
6.4 billion and global economic output as measured by GDP grew more than 20-fold
(Maddison, 2001). This expansion of the global socio-economic system was accompanied by
fundamental changes in society-nature-relations and by a massive transformation of natural
systems (MEA 2005; Hibbard et al. 2007; Steffen et al., 2007). Although humans have altered
their physical environment throughout their 4 million year history, there has never been
anything like the 20th century, as John McNeill (2000, p.3) has put it in his seminal book on
the environmental history of the 20th century, entitled something new under the sun. One of
the main drivers of human induced environmental change has been the growing social or
industrial metabolism, i.e. the inputs of materials and energy into socio-economic systems and
the corresponding outflows of wastes and emissions (Ayres and Simonis, 1994, Fischer-
Kowalski and Haberl, 2007). Changes in the structure and size of social metabolism are
directly and indirectly linked to a wide range of environmental pressures, to resource scarcity
and corresponding conflicts and are key to sustainable development. A better understanding
of the patterns and trends of changes in the global social metabolism helps to understand the
dynamics of human environment relations (Wagner, 2002; National Research Council of the
National Academies, 2003).
While global time series data for the long-term historical development of important socio-
economic indicators such as GDP and population (Maddison, 2008) and a number of
biophysical indicators such as primary energy supply (Etemad and Luciani, 1991, Grübler,
1998, Podobnik, 1999), CO2 emissions (Marland et al., 2007) or the use of specific substances
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
3
(e.g. Kelly and Matos, 2008) have been compiled in the last decade, a comprehensive account
of global materials extraction and use is still missing.
Economy-wide material flow accounts for historical periods have been compiled for a
growing number of individual countries.1 Most of these country-level case studies document
historical trends ranging from several years up to several decades. Only very few studies
include time periods before 1970 (see e.g. Matos and Wagner, 1998, Schandl and Schulz,
2002, Petrovic, 2007). Several attempts have been made to compile global country-by-country
material flow accounts for recent years (Schandl and Eisenmenger, 2006, Behrens et al., 2007,
Krausmann et al., 2008b). According to these studies, global materials extraction was
estimated to range between 47 and 59 billion metric tons (Gt) per year at the beginning of the
21st century. Up to date, only one dataset presenting time-series data on global materials
extraction has been published: The SERI (2008) dataset provides a quantitative estimate of
global resource extraction for the period 1980 to 2005. Time series data for the material
extraction during earlier periods of industrial development is scarce.
This paper presents a first quantification of global materials extraction for the past century,
based on the conceptual and methodological principles of economy-wide material flow
accounting (MFA). On the global level, the amount of resources extracted is equal to the
amount of resources used. On the individual country level, domestic extraction of resources
(DE) differs from domestic resource use (DMC), as trade has to be taken into account.2 In the
first section, we describe accounting principles, data sources, estimation procedures used to
quantify material flows not covered in statistical records, and the general structure of the
database. We then present an overview of the development of global materials extraction in
the period 1900 to 2005, structured according to the four major material categories (biomass,
fossil fuels, industrial minerals and metallic ores and construction minerals).3 In the
discussion section, we explore the interrelations between the trajectory of global materials use
and population, GDP and primary energy supply. We also discuss changes in the volume of
materials used per capita and per unit of GDP. We conclude with an outlook on the possible
future development of global materials use and implications for sustainable development.
Methods and data
According to broadly accepted principles of economy wide material flow accounting (MFA)
(Eurostat, 2007b), we accounted for the extraction (domestic extraction, DE) of all types of
biomass, fossil energy carriers, ores and industrial minerals as well as for bulk minerals used
for construction. Extraction by definition also includes the biomass grazed by domesticated
livestock, used crop residues and the tailings which accrue during the processing of extracted
ores. Resources extracted but not used, that is, materials that are moved by human activities
but are not subject to any further economic use (e.g. overburden in mining, excavated soil,
burnt crop residues etc.) have not been accounted for. As on an aggregate global level, total
net trade is zero and consequently, total amount of resources extracted (DE) equals total
amount of resources used (DMC), resource extraction and resource use are synonyms, and we
employ these terms interchangeably. The following section briefly describes the data sources
used and the estimation procedures applied.
1 See, for example, Adriaanse et al., 1997, Rogich et al., 2008, Eurostat 2007a, Gonzalez-Martinez and Schandl,
2008 and Russi et al., 2008.
2 According to standard MFA methods, DMC is defined as follows: DMC=DE + imports – exports. On the
global level, trade equals out, and thus DE = DMC.
3 The data discussed in this paper can be downloaded from http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/socec/inhalt/1088.htm
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
4
Biomass
In order to quantify global biomass extraction, we use a novel method employed to account
for biomass extraction on a country by country level for the year 2000 (Krausmann et al.,
2008a). We adapted the method for time series application and adjusted some of the
estimation procedures to account for technological change (e.g. changes in harvest indices and
recovery rates needed to estimate the extraction of crop residues). Total biomass extraction
includes the amount of harvested primary crops (up to 165 items); used extraction of crop
residues (up to 50 items); harvest of fodder crops, grasses and grazed biomass (12 items) and
wood extraction (2 items). Crop residues were estimated using harvest indices and recovery
rates for the most important crops (Krausmann et al. 2008). Based on regional estimates, it
was assumed that harvest indices improved by 10 to 70% since 1900 – most of this growth
took place in industrialised countries since the 1950s (Evans, 1993, Krausmann, 2001).
Grazed biomass was estimated on the basis of livestock numbers and daily roughage
requirements of different livestock species. Figures for daily roughage intake were estimated
using data on the development of live-weight and milk output based on data provided by FAO
(2006) (see Krausmann et al., 2008a). To quantify wood harvest, we used data reported by
FAO (1955 and 2006) and Zon & Sparhawk (1923) (see also Fernandes et al., 2007). All
biomass flows are reported in fresh weight at the time of harvest (ranging from 14% for
cereals to over 90% for fruits and vegetables), with the exception of the biomass harvested
from grassland, grazed biomass and grass-type fodder crops, which have been standardized to
air-dry mass at 15% moisture content.
Annual data were available from FAO (2006) for the period 1961 to 2005. For 1910, 1930
and 1950 data from various statistical yearbooks of FAO and the Institut International
d’Agriculture (e.g. 1931) were used. Data for countries not reported in the data compilations
of the Institut International d'Agriculture were estimated by using regional per-capita data
derived from reporting countries and weighted by population numbers. Although global
biomass harvest grows continuously and shows little annual fluctuations during the period
from 1961 to 2005, it has to be assumed that we underestimate slumps in biomass harvest
which are likely to have occurred during and shortly after the World Wars I and II.
Relative to other estimates of biomass extraction in the MFA tradition, we feel we have
achieved a higher degree of consistency and comprehensiveness, particularly by careful and
region specific estimates of (the substantial) amounts grazed – a fraction chronically hard to
quantify (see Haberl et al., 2007).
Fossil energy carriers
Material flow accounts distinguish brown and hard coal, petroleum, natural gas and peat. The
extraction of fossil energy carriers is well documented in statistical sources and data
compilations. Underestimations may occur, because production statistics sometimes excludes
the amount of energy carriers used immediately at the site of extraction (in particular for
petroleum resources). Since the 1920s, annual data on the production of fossil energy carriers
have been published by the United Nations (1952) and later also by the International Energy
Agency (IEA, 2007b). Comprehensive data compilations have been provided for example by
Etemad & Luciani (1991). We used data series based compiled by Podobnik (1999) on the
basis of official energy statistics and reconverted numbers given in energy units into mass
using standard calorific values, and then updated the series on the basis of IEA (2007) and
data provided by Kelly and Matos (2008) for global peat extraction. Data from Podobnik
(1999) and IEA (2007b), complemented with data on primary solid biomass used as fuel from
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
5
Fernandes et al. (2007), were also used to calculate global total primary energy supply
(TPES).
Metal ores and industrial minerals
We used data on the global extraction of mineral commodities compiled by the United States
Geological Survey (Kelly and Matos, 2008) and distinguish 44 types of ores and 33 types of
industrial minerals. With the exception of iron ore and bauxite, Kelly and Matos (2008) report
data in terms of metal content (excluding tailings). In order to arrive at the amount of gross
ore extracted (as required by the MFA conventions), we used average global ore grades
derived from country-by-country information on ore mining from USGS (2008) for the year
2000. Information on coupled production of ores was considered in order to avoid double
counting. The question if and to what extent the average ore grades declined during the last
century is contested (Martin and Jen, 1988). Consistent information on the development of
ore grades is limited, but for several ores there is evidence that average ore grades have been
declining. We used a recently published study (Mudd, 2007a) on the long-term historical
development of ore grades in Australian mining and other literature (Mudd, 2007b; Gerst,
2008) in order to derive conservative estimates of changes of ore grades for lead, zinc, nickel,
copper, gold, silver and uranium over time (assuming linear development between 1900 and
2005). However, the effect of changing ore grades on the trends of the total extraction of
metal ores is small: Our assumptions on historic ore grades result in a reduction of total
extraction of ores in 1900 by less than 20% as compared to keeping ore grades constant at the
present level. This difference is diminishing over time.
Bulk minerals for construction
Reliable data on the extraction of crushed tone, sand and gravel used for construction are only
reported for a number of industrial countries and for recent years. No global data on the
extraction of construction minerals exist. In the MFA literature, different approaches are
discussed to estimate bulk materials used in construction. Several authors proposed to base
estimates on an assumed relation between income (as a proxy for industrialisation) and per
capita DMC of construction minerals (Schandl and Eisenmenger, 2006; SERI, 2008,
Krausmann et al. 2008b). This procedure, however, is problematic for two reasons: first, the
relation between income and the use of construction minerals still lacks solid empirical
testing, neglects other influencing factors and the factors applied have to be considered as
being very rough. Second, the use of GDP data to estimate the size of material flows has the
disadvantage of constraining the analysis of the relation between materials use and economic
development by generating a priori methodological interdependencies and circular arguments.
In its compilation guide for economy wide MFA Eurostat (2007b) proposes an estimation
procedure based on the combination of data on concrete production, and changes in road
length, employing factors for average demand of sand and gravel associated with concrete
production and road building. We based our account on a modified version of this approach:
We used data on cement production to estimate the total amount of limestone extracted and
the amount of sand and gravel used for concrete production by assuming a ratio of cement to
limestone of 1 to 1.4 and of cement to concrete of 1: 6.5 (Eurostat 2007b; Rubli and
Jungbluth, 2005); Additionally, data on bitumen production allowed to extrapolate the amount
of sand and gravel used for asphalt production, assuming a ratio of 1:20. In order to account
for other construction materials (bricks, dimension stone), sand and gravel used for other
purposes than concrete and asphalt production, we proceeded as follows: We assumed an
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
6
average use of alternative construction materials of 0.3 tons per capita of rural, and of 0.9 tons
per capita of urban population. These figures are based on information on the amount of
construction materials used in railroad construction and the expansion of the global railway
system, the urban use of bricks and dimension stone in the city of Vienna and other sporadic
evidence. They have to be considered rough estimates, but they allow in particular to account
for systematic underestimation in the first half of the 20th century, when cement and asphalt
were only beginning to substitute for other construction minerals. All factors chosen are
conservative; Based on comparison of our results with reliable data for the use of sand and
gravel which exist for a number of industrialized countries, we assume that we underestimate
the use of bulk materials in construction by 20 to 40%, in particular because the use of sand,
gravel or crushed stone used for fillings and as base material are not accounted for.
Data on cement production were derived from Schmid (1948) and Kelly and Matos (2008);
data on bitumen from IEA (2007a), UN (2007a) and Abraham (1945), population data from
Maddison (2008) and FAO (2006) (rural and urban population).
Data Reliability
The core of the time series of all four main material categories is based on statistical data
which have been collected by national statistical offices and compiled by international
organisations. As far as MFA data are based on these statistics, their calculation is relatively
straightforward, and data quality matches the international statistics. A limited number of
(large) flows (including, for example, grazed biomass, harvested crop residues, tailings of ore
mining and construction minerals), though, is not reported in statistical sources and had to be
estimated. The backbone of the estimation procedures applied was in all cases statistical data
such as livestock numbers, data on animal production, primary crop harvest, net ore
production or cement and bitumen production. These have been used in acknowledged
procedures to account for the associated material flows. Hence, our estimate is to a very large
extent based on annually reported data in physical units.
Statistical reporting of data on resource extraction has a long tradition, and many countries
adopted annual accounting and reporting schemes already in the 19th century. By the
beginning of the 20th century, many nations were publishing annual data on agriculture,
mining and industrial production. These data were then collected by international bodies (e.g.
the League of Nations or the Institut International d'Agriculture). These data are considered
reliable, although, for various reasons, there is some underreporting, in particular in the early
periods, which had to be taken into account: For the case of biomass use, underestimations are
largest because a significant number of countries in the first half of the 20th century had no
data reported. We accounted for these underestimations by applying population-based
corrections. The best data are probably available for fossil energy carriers, for ores and
industrial minerals. Minor underestimations (probably less than 3%) are possible, because in
earlier years only the most important producers were included in the reporting or because
fossil energy carriers consumed at the site of extraction are not adequately reported (see also
Kelly and Matos, 2008). Construction minerals make up a large flow. The estimate is based
on data of high quality, but we assume a systematic underestimation resulting from the fact
that bulk flows used in fillings and as base materials are not adequately considered in our
estimate. On the level of aggregate materials use, we assume our estimate to be conservative
and systematically under-represent material extraction for the whole period by something
between 10% and 20%. This underestimation may be somewhat larger during the early
periods of the observed time period. In general, we assume that our data provide a consistent
picture of the overall size and composition of global materials use and their change over time.
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
7
Our data also match well with another estimate of global material flows covering the period
1980 to 2005 (SERI, 2008): According to our estimate, we observe a steeper trend of growth
in material extraction (2.28% as compared to 1.55% average annual growth 1980 to 2005),
which is predominantly due to differences in the approach used to account for construction
minerals.
Findings
Trends in global materials use
Figure 1 shows global material extraction for the period 1900 to 2005 in a break down by four
major material types. Total material extraction during this century has increased by a factor of
8. In 2005, roughly 59 Gt/yr of materials were extracted and used worldwide. The strongest
increase during this period can be observed for construction minerals, which grew by a factor
34, ores/industrial minerals by a factor 27. Biomass extraction grew only 3.6-fold. For most of
the 20th century, biomass was the most significant of the four material types in terms of mass
and only in the 1990s it was overtaken by construction minerals. The share of biomass in total
DMC declined continuously throughout the observed period. In 1900, biomass accounted for
almost three quarters of total DMC. One century later, its share had declined to only one third.
In particular, the period between WWII and the first and second oil price peak in the early
1970s saw a rapid shift from renewable biomass towards mineral materials. The relative
biomass peaks of the years 1920, 1933 and 1946 (Figure 1d) do not really represent peaks in
biomass extraction but a reduction in the use of the other materials. It is also no surprise that
the slumps in overall materials use induced by WWI and WWII and the world economic crisis
were less pronounced for biomass than for the other material categories. Quite
understandably, it is of highest priority that people and domestic animals continue to be
nourished.
Throughout the observation period, DMC increased continuously with annual growth rates
between 1% and 4%. Periods with declining or stagnating DMC were rare, and never lasted
for more than a few years. All periods of absolute dematerialization (i.e. declining DMC)
coincided with economic recession: Declining DMC was observed in some years during and
shortly after WWI, during the world economic crisis (1930-32), during several years during
and after WWII and in 1992. The years following the oil price peaks (1973, 1979 and 1988)
were characterised by sharply reduced growth of GDP and stagnation in materials use.
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
8
Figure 1: Materials use (DMC=DE) by material types in the period 1900 to 2005. 1a and b) total materials use
in Giga tons (Gt) per yr; 1c) metabolic rate (materials use in t/cap/year); 1d) share of material types of total
materials use.
Sources: See text
Changes in the composition of materials use over time
Table 1 shows changes in the composition of total materials use on a more detailed level. The
share of primary crops in total biomass extraction increased from 21% to 35%, the share of
roughage (fodder crops, grazed biomass) declined from 47% to 30% and that of wood from
15 to 11%. Tailings accounted for roughly 75 to 80% of total extraction of metal ores
throughout the observed period. Iron is the most important metal throughout the period. It
accounted for 95% of all extracted metals (metal content only) in 1900 and its share declines
gradually to slightly over 80% in 2000 and has increased since to 85%. Other metals of
significance are copper and alumina with a share of several per cent of total metal extraction
in 1900; in 2005, alumina accounted for 7%, copper for 2% and all other metals for 7% of all
extracted metals. With respect to fossil energy carriers, we observe the well known shift from
the dominance of coal to petroleum and natural gas. Coal accounts for more than 98% of all
extracted fossil energy carriers in 1900 and its share declined continuously to somewhat less
than 50% in the 1970s and remained at this level since. Changes in the composition of
construction materials have to be interpreted with care, because of the built-in assumptions
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
9
used in the estimation procedure of these bulk materials. According to our estimate, the share
of construction minerals associated with the production and use of cement increases
continuously throughout the period. Accounting for merely 15% of total construction minerals
in 1900, its share increased steeply after World War 2 to more than 60% at the beginning of
the 1970s and amounted to 74% in 2005. Sand and gravel used for the production of asphalt
accounted to only 8% of all construction materials after WWII. This share increased to 14%
in 1973 and since remained between 10 and 15%. All other construction minerals still
dominate in 1900 (making up 85% of all construction materials) but decline rapidly to an
intermediate low in the 1930ies and then again after WWII from 50% in 1950 to finally 17%
in 2005.
Table 1: Changes in the composition of global material extraction.
1900 1925 1950 1975 2005
Biomass [mio t]
5,272 6,942 8,193 12,402 19,061
Primary crops 21,4% 23,3% 24,1% 29,4% 35,4%
Crop residues 16,1% 15,6% 17,9% 21,0% 23,1%
Roughage
47,1% 44,9% 40,6% 36,4% 30,2%
Wood
15,4% 16,2% 17,4% 13,2% 11,3%
Fossil energy carriers [mio t] 968 1,787 2,754 7,171 11,846
Coal (incl. peat) 97,5% 90,9% 75,5% 48,6% 48,6%
Petroleum
1,9% 7,5% 18,5% 38,2% 32,8%
Natural Gas 0,6% 1,6% 6,0% 13,2% 18,6%
Metal ores (metal content only) [mio t] 51 87 149 552 961
Iron
95,1% 92,0% 89,2% 86,6% 85,0%
Copper
1,0% 1,8% 1,6% 1,2% 1,6%
Alumina
0,1% 0,6% 2,0% 4,7% 6,6%
All other metal ores 3,8% 5,6% 7,2% 7,5% 6,8%
Tailings (metal ores) [mio t] 142 330 538 1,681 3,521
Industrial minerals [mio t] 17 57 125 655 1,154
Construction minerals (cm) [mio t] 667 1,269 2,389 8,445 22,931
Cement-related cm 15,2% 32,3% 40,4% 60,3% 74,3%
Asphalt-related cm 0,0% 0,9% 9,5% 14,5% 9,0%
All other cm 84,8% 66,8% 50,1% 25,2% 16,7%
Source: See text
Distinguishing phases of resource use over time
Global materials use is a complex process driven by population growth and economic
prosperity as reflected in GDP. Based on the rates of materials use per capita, we are able to
discern three periods with distinct growth dynamics (Figure 1 and Table 2): During the first
half of the 20th century, materials use grew only modestly, partly because two World Wars
and the economic crisis in the 1930s caused major disruptions even on a global scale (cf.
McNeill, 2005). On the one hand, these crises interrupted periods of growth, on the other
hand, restructuring and reconstruction during post-war periods induced phases of accelerated
growth. This is particularly obvious from the dynamics of per capita materials use in Figure
1c. Overall DMC in the first half of the 20th century grew by just 1.2% per year, that is, at a
considerably slower pace than GDP (2.13% per year), only slightly faster than the world
population (0.98% per year). Thus materials use per capita had no more than an average
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
10
annual growth rate of 0.2%. We observe very low average annual growth rates for biomass
and construction minerals, and modest growth for fossil energy carriers and ores/industrial
minerals.4
After WWII, physical growth accelerated and kicked off a period of uninterrupted and rapid
growth of materials use which lasted for three decades. In this period, annual growth rates
exceeded 4% in several years. The average annual growth rate of DMC was 3.3%, fossils use
grew by 4.5% yearly, and the use of ores, industrial and construction minerals even around
6% per year. Even biomass use rose faster (1.52% per year) than ever before or after. In this
period, growth rates of materials use by far exceeded population growth and led to an
unprecedented increase in the rate of materials used per capita.5
Table 2: Average annual growth rates of major materials, population, GDP and total primary energy supply
(TPES) for different periods
Biomass Fossil
energy
carriers
Ores/
ind.
minerals
Constr.
minerals Total
DMC DMC/
cap Populati
on GDP GDP/
cap TPES
1900 to 1945 0.92% 1.70% 2.30% 1.98% 1.21% 0.23% 0.98% 2.13% 1,13% 1.33%
1945 to 1973 1.52% 4.48% 5.74% 6.05% 3.30% 1.55% 1.72% 4.18% 2,42% 4.39%
1973 to 2005 1.42% 1.63% 2.21% 3.22% 2.13% 0.56% 1.56% 3.27% 1,69% 1.90%
1900-2005 1.23% 2.41% 3.18% 3.43% 2.04% 0.68% 1.35% 3.02% 1,64% 2.31%
1900-2005 (factor) 3.6 12.2 26.7 34.4 8.4 2.0 4.1 22.8 5,5 11.0
Sources: See text; own calculations based on Maddison 2008 (GDP in 1990international Geary Khamis Dollars
and Population); Podobnik 1999, IEA 2007b and Fernandes et al. 2007 (TPES).
Then the oil price peaks of the early 1970s set an abrupt end to these heydays and growth
slowed down markedly. With the exception of biomass use, which continued to rise at a
moderate pace, average annual growth rates declined by 50% or more. The annual growth rate
of DMC slumped to 2.13%, and the distance to population growth was significantly reduced,
so that materials use per capita stabilized (with annual growth rates down to 0.56%). Towards
the turn of the new millennium, though, growth of materials use accelerated again; global
growth rates of all materials as well as per capita materials use increased markedly since the
year 2000 (see Figure 1c).
Across the whole period, global DMC grew significantly faster than population but much less
than GDP. Consequently, per capita DMC doubled, while material intensity (measured as
DMC per unit of GDP) declined continuously and in 2005 amounted to only 40% of the value
of 1900.
4 It is interesting to note that the preparation and equipment for the two World Wars has contributed less to an
increase in overall energy and metals use than the reconstruction and welfare period after WWII.
5 In an environmental history context, this period has also been described as “great acceleration” (Hibbard et al.
2005) or the “1950s syndrome” C. Pfister (1994)
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
11
Discussion
The global metabolic transition
The outstanding role the 20th century played in the transformation of societies’ natural
relations which John McNeill (2001) has outlined so impressively is also reflected in the
development of global material extraction. According to our data the global size of social
metabolism has multiplied several times during the last century. Global material extraction
reached the enormous amount of 59 billion tons in the year 2005 and continues to rise at a
very high rate. The size of social metabolism has been approaching a magnitude that is
comparable with major global material flows in ecosystems. For example, global human
materials use is in the same order of magnitude as the amount of global terrestrial net primary
production, that is the amount of biomass produced annually by green plants through
photosynthesis (120 Gt, Haberl et al., 2007). Throughout the century, the physical economy
grew faster than population6, and average per capita use of materials (i.e. metabolic rates)
increased considerably. In particular, the years between 1945 and the first oil price shock,
which have been described as the period of the emergence of a society of mass production and
mass consumption (Ayres, 1990, Grübler, 1998, Pfister 1994), appear as a period of major
metabolic change. Rapid industrialization processes in Western industrial economies and in
Japan drove global change and left their imprint on the global metabolic system. In these 28
years alone, per-capita use of materials increased by more than 50%, and the use of non-
renewable minerals by 340%. Still, the current global level of per capita materials use is low
compared to that of fully industrialized regions: It amounts to just under 60% of the average
per capita DMC of Western Europe and less than one third of that of North America
(Krausmann et al., 2008b).
During the last century, we not only observed an exponential increase in global materials use,
but also a fundamental shift in its structure and composition. Between 1900 and 1950 the
share of biomass declined from roughly 75%, a value typical for economies at the beginning
of the industrial revolution (Schandl and Schulz, 2002), to less than 50%. At the beginning of
the new millennium, non-renewable resources accounted for more than 70% of total materials
use, and their share is still increasing. The economic historian Anthony Wrigley (1988) has
described this shift in the resource base as a typical feature of the industrial revolution in the
UK in the 18th and 19th century and has termed it a shift from an (advanced) organic economy
towards a mineral economy. In this process, for the first time in human history, the resources
obtained from the exploitation of large but finite mineral stocks gained significance as
compared to renewable biomass which prevailed as the key energy and material resource of
the organic economy. Minerals use eventually by far outgrew biomass. Our data indicate that,
from a social metabolism perspective, the global transition from an agrarian towards an
industrial resource base has progressed considerably during the last century. Another aspect
of this metabolic transition is a shift from “throughput materials”, materials which by and
large are consumed within a year or less, towards a high share of “accumulation materials”
building up large socioeconomic material stocks. Biomass, which is predominantly used as
food for humans and livestock, and fossil energy carriers which are combusted in order to
6 It is interesting to note that biomass, the material basis for human nutrition, is the only material group that grew
at slightly slower pace than population (see Table 2). Above all this can be attributed to considerable efficiency
gains in biomass conversion, such as improvements in the harvest index of cultivars and more efficient livestock
conversion (see e.g. Smil 2000). Additionally, the substitution of fossil fuels for draft animals and fuel wood has
contributed to reductions in per capita biomass extraction.
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
12
produce energy,7 used to dominate global DMC until WWII. During the period of accelerated
growth after WWII, in less than 30 years the share of metallic and non-metallic minerals that
accumulate in built infrastructure and durable artefacts increased from 15 to 35%. Although
no reliable estimates of global material stocks yet exist, information from case studies indicate
that in fully industrialized countries minerals accumulated in built infrastructure and artefacts
amount to several hundred tons per capita (Hashimoto et al., 2007; Rubli and Jungbluth,
2005). These material stocks generate a lasting demand for future investment of materials and
energy for maintaining and using infrastructure (and eventually for their destruction). On the
other hand, parts of these stocks may serve as future “mines” for raw materials (Brunner,
2004, Gordon et al., 2006).
Material and energy use, economic growth and dematerialization
Combining the data on the global use of materials with existing information on GDP and total
primary energy supply (TPES) allows highlighting some issues concerning the relation
between physical and economic growth at the global scale (Figure 2) and the development of
the resource intensity8 of the global economy. During the 20th century, global population
roughly quadrupled while global GDP surged by a factor 24. Average per capita income
increased from 1260 US$/cap/yr to currently around 7000 US$/cap/yr. With growing income
and population also the physical size of the economy in terms of material and energy use
multiplied, but as Figure 2a and b indicate, global material supply grew somewhat slower than
primary energy supply. Both indicators for the size of the physical economy grew faster than
population; the metabolic rate, that is the amount of materials and energy used per capita and
year, more than doubled. It is interesting to see that material and energy use follow a very
similar trajectory.9 Figure 2a shows that the physical size of the economy grew at a much
slower pace than its monetary size and during the last century, the material and energy
intensity of the global economy continuously declined towards 30% (materials) and 50%
(energy) of its value calculated for 1900 (Figure 2c). This trend does not apply to all
materials, though, as Figure 2d shows. Most of the reduction in material intensity was due to
the declining intensity of biomass use, while the intensity of minerals use even increased
during the larger part of the 20th century and began to decline only during and after the 1970s.
Biomass, which is among others the material basis for human nutrition, seems to be linked
primarily to population growth, but the use of non-renewable minerals is much more closely
linked to economic growth. On the centennial scale, overall efficiency (or resource
productivity) gains for mineral materials therefore appear to be comparatively small.
Our results indicate that an overall decline in the material intensity of the global economy, or,
inversely, the increase in efficiency with which materials (and energy) are used, is a
characteristic feature of a period of global industrialisation. The efficiency gains achieved are
remarkable: Energy intensity declined by 0.68 % per year, and material intensity even by 1%
per year.10 These efficiency gains did not translate in a reduction of the materials and energy
7 The material use fraction of biomass (e.g. timber) and fossil energy carriers (e.g. feedstock for the
petrochemical industry) is comparatively small and ranges between 5 and 10%.
8 Material and energy intensity are defined as material (DMC) or energy (TPES) input per unit of GDP and are
measured in kg or Joule per unit of GDP.
9 Both DMC and TPES include fossil energy carriers and primary solid biomass used for energy generation.
However, they are aggregated in different units (DMC: mass units, TPES: energy units) which results in
considerable differences. Significant flows of material (all non-energy use materials) and energy (hydropower,
nuclear heat, geothermal energy) are not overlapping.
10 It should be noted, that the long term historical development of GDP is difficult to measure and that such a
time series is based on many assumptions concerning prices and production. Although the global series which
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
13
used. Both global TPES and DMC continue to grow, and after a phase of relative stabilization
this growth rate again accelerated since the year 2000.11 Throughout the period observed,
however, materials use has reacted sensitively to recessions and even to slow down in
economic growth: Whenever the global economy experienced decline or stagnation, material
and energy use slumped. The only periods of absolute global dematerialization occurred after
the two World Wars and during the World economic crisis in the late 1920ies and following
the oil-price peaks in the 1970s. This documents the intimate linkage between materials use
and economic development.
Figure 2: (a) Development of materials use (DMC), total primary energy supply (TPES), population and GDP;
(b) Metabolic rates (materials use and TPES per capita and year); (c) material and energy intensity; (d) material
intensity for biomass and mineral materials
Sources: TPES derived from Podobnik (1999), IEA (2007) and Fernandes et al. (2007); Population and GDP
(1990 international Geary-Khamis Dollars) from Maddison (2008). All other data: see text.
we have used (Maddison 2008) can be considered the most reliable estimate currently available, considerable
uncertainties remain. Despite of these uncertainties, we assume, that the overall level of GDP growth in the
observed period (more than 20fold) is robust and that the finding that GDP grows at a much faster rate than
DMC during the 20th century is solid. The global trend is corroborated by data for individual countries for which
more solid data for the historical development of both material/energy use and GDP exist (e.g. Gales et al. 2007,
Bartoletto and Rubio 2008, Matos and Wagner 1998; unpublished calculations for Austria, UK, USA and Japan
by the authors).
11 In the period 2000 to 2005 DMC grew at an average annual growth rate of 3.7% (TPES: 2.7%) as compared to
1.8% (TPES: 1.4%) in the preceding decade.
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
14
Which countries or regions drive global growth in materials use?
Unfortunately, no country- or region-specific data on global materials use are available yet for
the observed period which constrains a more in-depth discussion of the contribution of
different world regions or country groups to the trends observed at the global level.
Nevertheless, some basic issues can be pointed out. Total global materials use in a given year
can be expressed as the product of population and metabolic rates (materials use per capita).
Thus, for a given material standard of life, population growth drives materials use: Population
increased considerably and continuously throughout the last century in all regions of the
world, but it grew by a factor of two faster in the so called “developing world” than in the
industrialized countries.12 In contrast, the metabolic rate increased much faster in the
industrialized countries. Available case studies for the long term development of material and
energy use in industrialized countries such as the USA (Matos and Wagner, 1998) and various
European countries (Schandl and Schulz, 2002; Krausmann et al., 2008c; Kuskova et al.,
2008; Gales et al., 2007; Bartoletto and Rubio, 2008) show that in the post WWII period per
capita resource use has been rapidly growing. After the oil price peaks in the 1970ies, growth
slowed down markedly and materials use in industrialized nations stabilized at a high per-
capita level (see e.g. Eurostat, 2007a). In contrast, in developing countries such as India
(Lanz, 2008), the Philippines (Kastner, 2007), China (Eisenmenger et al., 2009) and many
Latin American countries (Russi et al., 2008, Gonzalez-Martinez and Schandl, 2008), during
most of the 20th century growth in materials use was predominantly driven by population
increase. Only in the last one to two decades a more pronounced growth of the metabolic rate
can be observed. Even today, the use of fossil fuels and minerals per capita and year is very
low in many countries of the South (Krausmann et al., 2008b).
This indicates that over the whole period, the contribution of the developing world to the
growth of global materials use was mostly due to rapidly growing population numbers. In
particular, this has driven global biomass extraction, but was much less responsible for the
observed surge in the use of non renewable materials. In contrast, industrial development and
post-war prosperity multiplied per-capita material and energy use in Europe, North America,
Japan and the USSR. In combination with the growing number of people in the industrialized
world, this has contributed disproportionately to the observed changes in the metabolic rate
and to the changes of composition of materials use at the global scale. Thus the steep increase
of metabolic rates and total volume of materials use after WWII as well as the relative
stabilization since the early 1970s – mainly reflect the trends within the industrial world. The
marked upturn of materials use since the year 2000, though, can be mainly attributed to a rise
in metabolic rates in China, India and several Latin American countries. Nevertheless, at the
beginning of the new millennium, the industrialized countries still dominate the global pattern
of materials use: In the year 2000, fully industrialized countries (inhabited by 15% of the
world population) were directly responsible for one third of global resource extraction13; this
imbalance is even more pronounced for key materials such as fossil energy carriers, industrial
minerals and metallic ores, where the share of the industrial countries is above 50%
(Krausmann et al., 2008b; SERI, 2008).
12 The population of industrial countries (here OECD countries plus Eastern European countries and the Soviet
Union and successor states) grew by a factor of 3 while that of all other countries by a factor of 6 (Maddison,
2008). Consequently, the share of the industrial countries in world population declined from 25% in 1900 to
15% in 2005.
13 Indirectly, their share may have been even larger, as many materially and energetically intensive production
processes have been externalized to developing countries but result in commodities used in industrial countries
(Fischer-Kowalski and Amann, 2001; Giljum and Eisenmenger, 2004).
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
15
Global materials use and environmental impacts
In the past century, the expansion of the global social metabolism has resulted in a significant
increase in human pressure on natural systems. The amount of materials used per unit of
global land area14 and year has increased from 0.5 t/ha/yr in 1900 to currently more than 4.5
t/ha/yr. Many local and global environmental problems that emerged in the 20th century are
directly or indirectly related to the extraction and use of materials and changes in the size and
structure of social metabolism. The expansion of biomass extraction has driven large-scale
deforestation, a reduction of wilderness areas and biodiversity loss and an increase in land use
intensity which is related to soil degradation, groundwater contamination and groundwater
depletion. Mining activities and ore processing are associated with considerable toxic releases
and the use of ores and other industrial minerals in consumer goods produces large amounts
of often hazardous wastes. The total combustion of 500 Gt of fossil energy carriers in course
of the 20th century was a major contributor to global green house gas emissions and climate
change. The environmental effect of the extraction and use of bulk construction minerals is
mostly indirect. Their movement, processing and use require considerable amounts of energy.
The built infrastructure for which these materials are used contributes to soil sealing and
requires materials and energy for operation and maintenance. In this case qualitative
characteristics of the built infrastructure are more important than the sheer size of the
associated flow of materials. Last but not least, the growth in materials use leads to the
accelerated exploitation of unevenly distributed and limited stocks of mineral resources. This
contributes to increasing production costs and eventually physical scarcity and often causes
conflicts about access to resources and about resource prices within and between countries
(Martinez-Alier, 2002; Bunker and Ciccantell 2005). In most cases, the ones who suffer from
these conflicts are countries of the global south and the poorest fractions of society.
Clearly, the environmental pressures and sustainability problems associated with the
extraction and use of materials are extremely heterogeneous. They differ largely by material
and vary over time with technological change. Aggregate materials use indicators as those
discussed in this paper can not capture the full environmental effect of shifts in the
composition of materials use or of technological fixes. But even though there is no simple one
to one relation between aggregate materials use and environmental deterioration, the size and
composition of materials use serves as a proxy for environmental pressures resulting from
human activities.
Conclusions
The last century witnessed an eightfold multiplication of the size of the global social
metabolism and a transition from the dominance of renewable biomass towards mineral
materials. Materials use has reached a size which matches material flows in ecosystems and
continues to grow. In the past century, materials use grew at a smaller rate than GDP, and
material productivity continuously improved at an average rate of 1% per year. By the
centennial perspective, it is evident that relative dematerialization is a standard feature of
economic development. Nevertheless, this dematerialization and these productivity gains did
not translate into reductions of materials use. What can we expect for the future of global
materials use? During the last century, it has been a combination of global population growth
and first rising and then stabilizing per-capita materials use of industrial countries that has
driven global materials use. In the most recent past, per-capita resource use in newly
14 Global land area excluding Greenland and Antarctica (Haberl et al. 2007).
Published as: Krausmann Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl and Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. Ecological Economics 68(10), 2696-2705.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.007
16
industrializing country like China, India, Mexico or Brazil started to rise, while the world’s
least developed countries are only now beginning the transition towards an industrial type
social metabolism. With global economic development continuing in a business-as-usual
mode and a projected population growth of 30-40% until 2050 (UN, 2007b; Lutz et al., 2004),
we should expect another sharp rise in global material extraction. A reduction of global
materials use or at least stabilization at the current level will require major reductions in
metabolic rates, above all in industrialized countries. Gains in the efficiency of materials use
could contribute to a decoupling of economic growth and materials and energy use but this
requires effective strategies to avoid rebound effects (Herring 2004), which in the past century
have counterbalanced the effect of efficiency gains on material use.
In view of the need to substantially de-carbonize social metabolism (or else face major threats
from climate change), an alarming decline of global remains of wilderness and biodiversity,
and with multiple scarcities coming into vision (available cropland, fish stocks, freshwater,
fossil oil and gas, various metal ores), it does not seem so likely that by the end of the current
economic crisis there will be a return to an economic business-as-usual mode. Even if
everybody would strive for an American way of life for themselves or their children in the
future, it is hard to believe that this is going to succeed. So may be the current economic
crisis, willingly or not, provides with an opportunity for a strategic withdrawal from
overconsumption instead of taking the risk, that finally humanity has to accept a full defeat.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project P21012-G11 and
draws on research from the FWF funded project P20812-G11. We would like to thank three
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
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