Ensuring affordable, favourable and sustainable lifestyles for all

The paper examines the dissonance between quality of life and environmental sustainability, highlighting how developed economies' high-consumption lifestyles drive global ecological overshoot. It critiques the current capitalistic model that equates purchasing power with freedom and argues that developing nations are unfairly burdened by historical emissions and resource depletion. To address this, the authors propose replacing GDP with a 'Green GDP' that integrates ESG norms and establishing a 'Conference of Parties on Utilization of Resources' (CoP-UR) to manage a global resource budget and hold polluting nations accountable.

• The world has entered a state of 'global ecological overshoot', with human resource use and waste generation now requiring 1.7 Earths to sustain.
• Greenhouse gas emissions are highly skewed by income and national wealth; the richest 10% of the global population emitted 52% of all carbon emissions between 1990 and 2015, while the richest 1% emitted 15%, which is more than double the emissions of the poorest half of humanity.
• There is a significant disparity in per capita resource use; for example, in 2017, the United States withdrew 1543 m3 of water per capita, approximately three times the amount used in India (602 m3) and China (425 m3).
• The document argues that the current global economic model traps individuals in a cycle of excessive consumption by linking purchasing power and 'capitalistic' lifestyles to the ideals of democracy and personal freedom.
• Developing countries face a double burden: they are pressured to accept collective responsibility for ecological degradation while their own sovereign rights to resources are subverted by multinational companies and policies like the proposed Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.
• The authors propose the creation of a 'Green GDP' that integrates environmental, social, and governance (ESG) norms to redefine economic richness based on sustainable and ethical growth rather than simple resource exploitation.
• The paper suggests establishing a 'Conference of Parties on Utilization of Resources' (CoP-UR) to manage a Global Budget of Resources, using blockchain to track per capita consumption and regulate the forced obsolescence of products.

APA

Raha, S., & Mallya, H. (2022). Ensuring affordable, favourable and sustainable lifestyles for all. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/sustainable-lifestyles-stockholm50backgroundpaper.pdf

Chicago

Raha, Shuva, and Hemant Mallya. Ensuring affordable, favourable and sustainable lifestyles for all. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2022. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/sustainable-lifestyles-stockholm50backgroundpaper.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Raha |first1=Shuva |last2=Mallya |first2=Hemant |title=Ensuring affordable, favourable and sustainable lifestyles for all |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=May 2022 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/sustainable-lifestyles-stockholm50backgroundpaper.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{raha2022ensuring, author = {Raha, Shuva and Mallya, Hemant}, title = {{Ensuring affordable, favourable and sustainable lifestyles for all}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2022}, month = may, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/sustainable-lifestyles-stockholm50backgroundpaper.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }