The Consumption Spiral

Over the past 75 years, unprecedented economic growth has been accompanied by a Great Acceleration in consumption and environmental pressure. The dominant framework for economic development discourse in this period, Rostow's Stages of Growth model, positioned High Mass-Consumption as the endpoint of development, largely externalizing ecological costs and treating material escalation as progress. For many countries, it rendered traditional economies as simply the first stage towards modernization, rather than valuing traditional and Indigenous Knowledge as forms of Ancestral Intelligence that can serve as a foundation for sustainable development. Written for policymakers, scholars and students of development economics, and practitioners working at the intersection of environment, economics, and sustainable consumption and production, the book advances three arguments. First, household consumption has become an increasingly important driver of GDP growth across high- and middle-income economies, while also representing a growing share of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet household consumption remains poorly integrated into development theory. Second, the displacement of traditional and Indigenous consumption practices through modernization has marginalized forms of knowledge that this book conceptualizes as Ancestral Intelligence. Third, regenerative growth requires structural reform through policies that embed true environmental costs into economic decision-making, while integrating Indigenous and traditional knowledge into development policy. To bring these arguments together, the book proposes the Consumption Spiral, a three-dimensional framework grounded in thermodynamic principles that goes beyond linear development models and two-dimensional circular-economy frameworks. The framework connects consumption intensity, environmental impact, and time across four phases of development. Cases spanning housing and earthen construction, transport and food systems illustrate how retrospective innovation, the recovery and application of Ancestral Intelligence, can redirect development from ecological overshoot towards regenerative growth. Sara Castro de Hallgren is a development economist with 17 years in the United Nations system, specializing in policy advice, strategic planning and technical cooperation that align economic development with environmental sustainability.