La desmaterialización de la economía mundial a debate. Consumo de recursos y crecimiento económico (1980-2008)

Abstract

In the limits of the growth debate, the idea of dematerialization is playing a key role. This paper try to provide a review of this concept as well as his major contributions. Following the database of SERI (2008), the paper builds several indicators of dematerialization between 1980 and 2008 for a sample of 149 countries. The main findings point out that the world is drawing a clear pattern of “weak dematerialization”, sharpened in richer countries. However, the absolute growth of resources consumption keep growing and, the countries that has stabilized his consumption have made it in very high rates. We propose a critical review of the causes of such process.