Which Influencing Factors Could Reduce Ecological Consumption? Evidence from 90 Countries for the Time Period 1996–2015

In the “full world” and Anthropocene, global ecological consumption is beyond natural capital’s regenerative and absorptive abilities, and ecological consumption of humanity has to be reduced to have an ecologically sustainable future. To achieve the goal of ecological sustainability, influencing factors that could reduce ecological consumption need to be explored. Based on three panel datasets for the time period 1996–2015, this paper estimates the impacts of urbanization, renewable energy consumption, service industries, and internet usage on ecological consumption for all 90 sample countries, the 42 developed countries, and the 48 developing countries. Education and income are taken as control variables in the panel regressions. As a consumption-side indicator, the ecological footprint is selected to measure ecological consumption. The estimations find that (1) urbanization has negative impacts for all sample countries and the developed countries, and it is insignificant for the developing countries, (2) renewable energy consumption and service industries have negative impacts for all of the three samples, and (3) internet usage has lagged negative impacts for all sample countries, and it is an independent and significant force of reducing ecological consumption in the developing countries rather than the developed countries. It is found that there is a positive linear relationship, an inversed U-shaped relationship, and a U-shaped relationship between ecological consumption and income in all sample countries, the developed countries, and the developing countries, respectively. The estimated results provide guidance for evidence-based policymaking on reducing ecological consumption.