Understanding the relationship between resource consumption and development levels

Developing an empirical understanding of the relationship between built environment
material stocks and minimum standards of living is essential to understanding challenges
and opportunities for sustainable development. This is particularly important in the Global
South given the existing deficits in living standards and the unprecedented rates of
urbanization expected in the coming decades. The following body of work seeks to provide
an improved understanding of this relationship through an empirical analysis of India which
is used as a topical testbed to address this research aim. Multiscale observations reveal
widespread challenges to minimum standards of living and resource consumption and thus
the achievement of interconnected SDGs. The empirical quantification of the coupling of MS
and basic needs outcomes across scales reveals existing national trends, where minimum
standards of living have grown with the provision of carbon intensive materials within the
built environment. The results also reveal that significant deficits in overall basic needs still
exist and that a substantial amount of residential building MS are required to fill deficits for
minimal improvements to overall basic needs if current trends are to continue. Through a
city- and sub-city scale assessment of built environment MS accumulation within India for
the first time, improved insight into the provision of MS in the context of high basic needs
outcomes is developed. This is of crucial importance for future policy making given that the
observed national trends are likely a result of policy choices in how urban infrastructure and
housing are provided within India. The results therefore point to the need to integrate MS
thinking and SDG monitoring within future urban planning and to develop empirical
understandings of this relationship in other nations of the Global South such that nations
identify appropriate strategies to decouple from global trends.