This report investigates the links between material use and related land requirements. A growing world
population, high – and growing – consumption levels in industrialised countries, rapidly increasing middle classes, related increased consumption levels and expanding urban areas are some of the key drivers behind the increasing demand for materials and land. Land is arguably one of the most taken-for-granted resources, largely due to its unseen role in all of our consumer and food products. It is a fundamental resource necessary to produce our crops, fruits and vegetables, the timber that is required to produce paper and furniture, the minerals we extract to build our houses and roads and the metal ores that form the basis of consumer goods, such as computers and mobile phones. Many people are oblivious to the link between the products that they are consuming in ever greater numbers and the central role that this is playing in land use changes, ecosystem degradation and poor working conditions in other parts of the world. Land is a limited resource. As demand for land grows, both the pressure on this limited resource and the competition between its different applications will escalate. For instance, around 38 % of the world’s land surface is currently used for agriculture. The increasing hunger for land to satisfy our consumption often becomes manifest in the direct or indirect appropriation of foreign land, often in the form of “land grabbing". Learn how much land is needed for the production of one car, one laptop, one kilo of pork meat or one cup of coffee.