When it comes to our sustainability problems, striving for greater resource efficiency seems like an obvious solution. For example, if you buy a new car that’s twice as efficient as your old one, it should cut your gasoline use in half. And if your new computer is four times more efficient than your last one, it should cut your computer’s electric bill fourfold.
In short, boosting efficiency seems like a straightforward way to reduce your use of natural resources. And for you personally, efficiency gains may do exactly that. But collectively, efficiency seems to have the opposite effect As technology gets more efficient, we tend to consume more resources. This backfire effect is known as the ‘Jevons paradox’, and it occurs for a simple reason. At a social level, efficiency is not a tool for conservation; it’s a catalyst for technological sprawl.
Here’s how it works. As technology gets more efficient, it cheapens the service that it provides. And when services get cheaper, we tend to use more of them. Hence, efficiency ends up catalyzing greater consumption.