World's highest-consuming 10% cause up to $5.7 trillion a year in environmental damage, study finds

The environmental damage caused by the world's highest-consuming 10% of people is worth $1.7 trillion to $5.7 trillion a year. At the central and upper estimates, this is several times more than the international community has committed to spend on climate action and biodiversity conservation combined, and is on the scale of the funding estimated to be needed globally to address these crises.

This finding, published in Communications Sustainability, puts a price on the harm this group inflicts across four planetary boundaries: climate change, biodiversity loss, nutrient pollution and freshwater use.

The average annual damage bill for a person in the global top 10% is $2,300 to $7,500. In the United States, where per-person impacts are highest, the figure rises to $19,000 to $63,000—equivalent to 6% to 20% of their income or 0.8% to 3% of their wealth. More than 60% of the global top 10% live in the U.S. and EU. In the EU, 40% to 45% of the population falls within this highest-consuming group, and in the U.S. it is more than half the population.

Biodiversity loss is the single largest contributor to the global damage bill, accounting for 47% to 56% of the total. Climate change accounts for 36% to 45%. The finding underlines recent calls to tackle biodiversity and climate crises together rather than treating them as separate policy challenges.

A conservative estimate of harm

The figures are likely conservative. They cover only four of nine planetary boundaries and reflect direct consumption alone. For the highest-income individuals, roughly half of emissions come from investments rather than personal consumption—impacts not captured in this analysis.

The scale of the damage bill illustrates the potential revenue if polluter-pays principles were applied to high-consuming groups. The researchers note that environmental taxation focused on luxury consumption rather than basic goods tends to be more progressive and more effective at reducing emissions, though they stress that pricing is one tool among several and does not justify or compensate for the damage itself.

Paul Behrens, British Academy Global Professor at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, and co-author of the study said, "The top 10% are important, not only because they cause the most damage, but also because they hold the most leverage to reduce it. The capital they invest, from pensions to infrastructure, decides which industries expand, the firms they run set the choices for everyone else, and the lifestyles they pursue shape what people consider normal.

"They often have outsized agency, not only individually as consumers, but also as investors, employers, trendmakers and market shapers. Their power to cut emissions is even larger than their share of them."

Lead author Inge Schrijver, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, Netherlands, said, "While I find it uncomfortable to put a price on the environment, as nature's true value is infinite, showing total damage in money terms does show the size of both the damages and responsibility of the top 10%.

"The damage bill is higher than the money needed internationally for climate and biodiversity funds. If the polluter pays and that money goes to solutions, it would make a huge difference. But it is not just about money. Most importantly, damage must be prevented. Apart from financial measures, stricter rules and regulations are crucial."

How the estimates were built

The study combines consumption-based environmental footprints with prices from the Environmental Prices Handbook 2024 to estimate the monetary cost of damage across climate change (CO₂), biodiversity loss (mean species abundance loss), nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, and freshwater use.

Prices were scaled across countries using GDP per capita. The underlying consumption data is from 2017, the most recent year for which globally comparable footprints are available.

Differences between countries reflect inequalities in consumption. The U.S. has the highest per-person bill of any country studied; the lowest are in India and Egypt. The study examines six countries (Brazil, China, Egypt, Germany, India, U.S.) and global totals.

The authors emphasize that monetizing environmental damage does not equate to commodifying nature, and that monetary figures capture only part of what ecosystems are worth. The purpose is to make the scale of concentrated environmental harm visible and to illustrate the revenue that could be generated if the polluter-pays principle were adopted.