A report on European and global resource use by SERI, GLOBAL 2000 and Friends of the Earth

Download the report “Overconsumption? Our use of the world’s natural resources” in English or in German.

In 2008, SERI established a cooperation with the environmental NGOs GLOBAL 2000 and Friends of the Earth Europe on the issue of “Europe’s Resource Use”. We consider that it is essential for sustainable development in Europe that a debate is started about our resource use and its environmental and social impacts around the world.

In order to help facilitate this debate, we present a new report, entitled “Overconsumption? Our use of the world’s natural resources”. This report provides a compilation of information on current trends in European and global resource use. The report combines the presentation of scientific findings with illustrative case studies. We tell the global story of resource use, dealing with the environmental and social problems related to resource extraction, growing international trade of resources, and resource consumption, which often takes place far away from the extraction of resources. In the final chapter, we also suggest a set of short- and medium-term measures, which could help making European resource use more sustainable.
This report focuses on biotic and abiotic materials, and is intended to be the first in a series of reports on different aspects of natural resource use, such as water use or land use.