Picture a car that burns half the fuel per mile of an older model. Its owner may simply drive more, and total fuel use can end up higher than before. Colcom Foundation builds much of its environmental thinking around this pattern, known as the Jevons paradox or the rebound effect.
The idea dates to 1865, when economist William Stanley Jevons observed that better efficiency in using a resource tends to raise, rather than lower, total consumption of it. Efficiency cuts the effective cost of use, and cheaper use invites more demand.
The American Numbers
The Foundation’s page offers a concrete example drawn from its Our Story documentation. Between 1970 and 2021, the United States cut per capita carbon dioxide emissions by 35%. Over those same years, the U.S. population grew by 62%. The net result was a 15% rise in total CO2 emissions.
Put simply, each American became cleaner on average, but there were far more Americans. Gains made person by person were swallowed by growth in the total number of people. Colcom Foundation argues that this is exactly what the rebound effect predicts.
What the Foundation Concludes
For Colcom Foundation, this history carries a clear lesson. Its environmental ethics documentation argues that efficiency improvements, on their own, cannot reverse environmental decline while population keeps growing. Two additional steps are needed: limiting population growth and permanently protecting large tracts of natural areas.
That reasoning shapes where the Foundation’s grant dollars go. Alongside efficiency-related work such as clean energy and low-impact transportation, it funds land acquisition, conservation easements, and public education on the environmental effects of population growth. Colcom Foundation also funds reforestation, riparian buffer planting, and endangered species preservation as part of its land-focused work. Colcom Foundation supports several special programs, including the Conservation Catalyst Fund, which grants conservation organizations working to protect threatened species and habitats. By offering financial support and resources, this foundation allows these groups to make significant strides in conservation efforts.
The Foundation presents these ideas as part of a broader framework. Per capita resource use and total population size, it stresses, must both be addressed if overall ecological impact is to shrink. Under growing population, the page says, the net outcome of efficiency gains is greater overall environmental impact, not less. Read this article for additional information.
More about Colcom Foundation on https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2024/03/12/wvu-led-three-rivers-quest-expands-environmental-research-and-education-efforts-with-colcom-foundation-support