Resource consumption in the context of "Logging"

Land consumption as part of human resource consumption is the conversion of land with healthy soil and intact habitats into areas for industrial agriculture, traffic (road building) and especially urban human settlements. More formally, the EEA has identified three land consuming activities:

1. The expansion of built-up area which can be directly measured;
2. the absolute extent of land that is subject to exploitation by agriculture, forestry or other economic activities; and
3. the over-intensive exploitation of land that is used for agriculture and forestry.

In all of those respects, land consumption is equivalent to typical land use in industrialized regions and civilizations.

In environmental science, a population overshoots its local carrying capacity—the maximum population size that an ecosystem can sustainably support—when it exceeds the availability of resources needed for survival. This can lead to a population crash if resources are depleted faster than they can regenerate. Overshoot applies to humans as well as other animal populations: any species that relies on consumption of resources to survive.

Environmental science studies to what extent human populations through their resource consumption have risen above the sustainable use of resources. For people, "overshoot" is that portion of their demand or ecological footprint which must be eliminated to be sustainable, or the delta between a sustainable population and what we currently have. Excessive demand leading to overshoot is driven by both consumption and population.

A circular economy (CE), also referred to as circularity, is a model of resource production and consumption in any economy that involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible. The concept aims to tackle global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution by emphasizing the design-based implementation of the three base principles of the model. The main three principles required for the transformation to a circular economy are: designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems. Circular economy is defined in contradistinction to the traditional linear economy.

The idea and concepts of a circular economy have been studied extensively in academia, business, and government over the past ten years. It has been gaining popularity because it can help to minimize carbon emissions and the consumption of raw materials, open up new market prospects, and, principally, increase the sustainability of consumption. At a government level, a circular economy is viewed as a method of combating global warming, as well as a facilitator of long-term growth. Circular economy may geographically connect actors and resources to stop material loops at the regional level. In its core principle, the European Parliament defines the circular economy as "a model of production and consumption that involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. In this way, the life cycle of products is extended." Global implementation of circular economy can reduce global emissions by 22.8 billion tons, equivalent to 39% of global emissions produced in 2019. By implementing circular economy strategies in five sectors alone: cement, aluminum, steel, plastics, and food, 9.3 billion metric tons of CO₂ equivalent (equal to all current emissions from transportation) can be reduced.

Resource intensity is a measure of the resources (e.g. water, energy, materials) needed for the production, processing and disposal of a unit of good or service, or for the completion of a process or activity; it is therefore a measure of the efficiency of resource use. It is often expressed as the quantity of resource embodied in unit cost e.g. litres of water per $1 spent on product. In national economic and sustainability accounting it can be calculated as units of resource expended per unit of GDP. When applied to a single person it is expressed as the resource use of that person per unit of consumption. Relatively high resource intensities indicate a high price or environmental cost of converting resource into GDP; low resource intensity indicates a lower price or environmental cost of converting resource into GDP.

Resource productivity and resource intensity are key concepts used in sustainability measurement as they measure attempts to decouple the connection between resource use and environmental degradation. Their strength is that they can be used as a metric for both economic and environmental cost. Although these concepts are two sides of the same coin, in practice they involve very different approaches and can be viewed as reflecting, on the one hand, the efficiency of resource production as outcome per unit of resource use (resource productivity) and, on the other hand, the efficiency of resource consumption as resource use per unit outcome (resource intensity). The sustainability objective is to maximize resource productivity while minimizing resource intensity.

A smart city is an urban model that leverages technology, human capital, and governance to improve sustainability, efficiency, and social inclusion, which are considered goals for cities of the future. Smart cities use digital technology to collect data and operate services. Data is collected from citizens, devices, buildings, or cameras. Smart city applications are diverse and include, but are not limited to, traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities, urban forestry, water supply networks, waste disposal, criminal investigations, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services. The foundation of a smart city is built on the integration of people, technology, and processes, which connect and interact across sectors such as healthcare, transportation, education, infrastructure, etc. Smart cities are characterized by the ways in which their local governments monitor, analyze, plan, and govern the city. In a smart city, data sharing extends to businesses, citizens, and other third parties who can derive benefit from using that data. The three largest sources of spending associated with smart cities as of 2022 were visual surveillance, public transit, and outdoor lighting.

Smart cities integrate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and devices connected to the Internet of Things (IOT) network to optimize city services and connect to citizens. ICT can enhance the quality, performance, and interactivity of urban services, reduce costs and resource consumption, and to increase contact between citizens and government. Smart city applications manage urban flows and allow for real-time responses. A smart city may be more prepared to respond to challenges than one with a conventional "transactional" relationship with its citizens. Yet, the term is open to many interpretations. Many cities have already adopted some sort of smart city technology.

The "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" was a document written in 1992 by Henry W. Kendall and signed by about 1,700 leading scientists. Twenty-five years later, in November 2017, 15,364 scientists signed "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice" written by William J. Ripple and seven co-authors calling for, among other things, human population planning, and drastically diminishing per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources. The second notice has more scientist cosigners and formal supporters than any other journal article ever published.