How much of humanity’s growing environmental footprint comes from more people, and how much from people consuming more? A 2023 paper by Rees in the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research offers one answer that Colcom Foundation features prominently. Between 1961 and 2016, the study found, population growth alone accounted for approximately 80% of the increase in total human ecological footprint.

For the Colcom Foundation, the finding supports a core claim: population size multiplies every other source of environmental harm. In the foundation’s reading, total impact keeps climbing as long as numbers grow, even if each person consumes less.

Building the Case

Colcom Foundation assembles its argument from several institutional sources. United Nations demographic data supply the global outlook, with a medium projection of 9.66 billion people by 2050. Global Footprint Network calculations show humanity consuming roughly 1.7 Earths per year, with Earth Overshoot Day arriving on July 24 in 2025. The same network’s data, according to the foundation, place a sustainable global population at 3 to 5 billion under current consumption.

Conservation science fills in the consequences. The WWF 2022 Living Planet Report recorded a 69% decline in global vertebrate populations since 1970, driven chiefly by human numbers and economic activity. Cafaro et al. (2022) and Bradshaw et al. (2021) both identified population growth and overconsumption as forces behind biodiversity loss.

Translating Research Into Policy

Colcom Foundation turns these findings into a regionally tailored program. Where fertility is high, it supports universal voluntary family planning along with education and economic opportunity for women. For the United States, where fertility has stayed at or below replacement since 1972, it calls for immigration policy that achieves net zero population growth.

The foundation also stresses consumption. It treats lower per capita use through efficiency gains and lifestyle choices as a partner to population stabilization, consistent with the I = P x A x T equation. Readers seeking the underlying research can consult the reports and journals the foundation lists. Refer to this article for related information.

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