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Environmental impacts of household consumption

Generally speaking, as household consumption grows, environmental pressures also grow. Increasing household consumption can reflect:

  • an increasing demand for consumer goods (eg, computers, mobile phones, televisions, kitchen appliances and cars)
  • an increasing demand for the products and services associated with those goods
  • an increased use of natural resources (eg, land, water, minerals, plants and animals)
  • an increase in energy use
  • an increase in transport use and a demand for more roads
  • an increase in packaging waste and overall waste generation
  • air, water and soil pollution and greenhouse gas emissions associated with increased energy and transport use, and waste management.

However, the volume of expenditure on goods and services by households is not necessarily a direct measure of the environmental impacts of these goods and services. This is because the links between consumption, economic growth and environmental impact are not straightforward, for example:

  • producers and consumers can reduce the environmental impact of household consumption by making and purchasing more resource-efficient and lower-waste goods
  • while economic growth can impact on the environment, it can also provide the means to fund public environmental protection expenditure.

Other actions to reduce the environmental impacts of consumption include:

  • specific controls at sites of production, use and disposal
  • transferring demand from higher to lower impact consumption categories
  • improved environmental information and labelling
  • green public procurement
  • market-based instruments.

In Europe, consumption categories identified as causing the greatest environmental impacts when their full life cycle is considered are food and beverages, private transport and housing (including energy consumption and construction).

Did you know?

  • New Zealand households accounted for a third of electricity used in New Zealand in the March 2007 year (and this doesn’t include the electricity used to produce the goods and services that households consume).
  • New Zealand households are buying an increasing number of electronic goods – in 2006/07, 74 per cent of households had a computer, up from 47 per cent in 2000/01, and 73 per cent of households had a mobile phone, up from 59 per cent in 2000/01.
  • As in other developed countries, consumption of goods and services is growing in New Zealand as our population and economy grow.


This information has come from the Household Consumption Expenditure environmental report card.

 

Last updated: April 2009