Human use of materials is a major driver of global environmental change. The links between materials use and economic development are central to the challenge of decoupling of materials use and economic growth (dematerialization). This article presents a new global material flow dataset compiled...

We investigate the relationship between human needs, energy consumption and carbon emissions for several indicators of human development: life expectancy, literacy, income and the Human Development Index. We find that high human development can be achieved at moderate energy and carbon levels;...