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Consumption inequalities in material use undermining resources sustainability

Nature Sustainability (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Growing global material consumption has pushed the Earth beyond safe planetary boundaries, yet little is known about how this burden is distributed across individuals. This study quantifies the inequality in household material footprints (MFs) using detailed global expenditure data from 168 countries, linked with a multiregional input–output approach. Results reveal stark inequalities: the top 10% consumers contribute 36% of global total household MFs, while the bottom 50% of consumers account for merely 18%. Inequality is especially pronounced in non-renewable resources such as metals and fossil fuels. Furthermore, elasticity analysis reveals a recoupling of resource use with high consumption, challenging the notion of absolute decoupling. These findings suggest that current sustainability policies about resource focusing on national efficiency gains may fall short without addressing the material-intensive lifestyles of the affluent. Targeting overconsumption at the top could reduce ecological overshoot and create space for sustainable development and material sufficiency for the global majority.

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Fig. 1: MFs by global expenditure decile in 2017.
Fig. 2: Sectoral composition of the MFs across global consumer deciles.
Fig. 3: MF inequality in 2017, measured by Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients.
Fig. 4: Per capita MFs of household consumption by country and expenditure decile.
Fig. 5: Contribution of global expenditure deciles to material overshoot.
Fig. 6: The MF elasticity of consumption for four material types.

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Data availability

The GLORIA database, including the MRIO table and materials satellite accounts, is openly accessible at https://ielab.info/. Expenditure data are collected from the World Bank (https://data.worldbank.org/) and other sources. See ref. 17 or contact the corresponding authors for more details.

Code availability

No new code is developed in this study.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 72522023, 72403147, 72534005 and 72303136), the Taishan Scholar Youth Expert Program of Shandong Province (grant no. tsqn202507015), the major grant in National Social Sciences of China (23VRC037, 24VHQ018) and the Young Talent of Lifting Engineering for Science and Technology in Shandong, China (grant no. SDAST2025QTA029).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Blue and Green Development, Shandong University, Weihai, China

    Peipei Tian, Dan Li & Jiashuo Li

  2. Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Kuishuang Feng

  3. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Xiangjie Chen & Laixiang Sun

  4. Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Meng Jiang

  5. The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, University College London, London, UK

    Heran Zheng

  6. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Yuli Shan

  7. Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Yuli Shan

  8. School of Finance & Management, SOAS University of London, London, UK

    Laixiang Sun

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Contributions

P.T., K.F., D.L. and L.S. designed the study. P.T. and D.L. performed the analysis and prepared the paper. K.F., D.L. and L.S. coordinated and supervised the project. P.T., K.F., X.C., D.L., M.J., J.L., H.Z., Y.S. and L.S. participated in writing the paper.

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Correspondence to Kuishuang Feng, Dan Li or Laixiang Sun.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Guilherme Magacho, Keisuke Nansai, Iban Ortuzar and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Tian, P., Feng, K., Chen, X. et al. Consumption inequalities in material use undermining resources sustainability. Nat Sustain (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01726-2

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