Understanding the Relationship between Resource Consumption and Development Levels

The research investigates the interdependent relationship between two key UN SDG's, reducing resource consumption and increasing social development, both of which are crucial to enable systematic development within the carrying capacity of the planet. This will bring about novel insights in achieving the SDGs through quantifying this relationship through a new hybrid method. A novel multi-scale framework will be developed by combining two isolated methods: building stock material flow analysis and urban scaling methods. These methods will be applied at neighbourhood, city and regional scales to understand how independent variables and relationships between them vary across scales. It will be applied to representative areas in the UK and India to test applicability in a developed and developing context. The research will then go on to understand how adopting alternative materials, construction types and infrastructure provision can reduce the carbon footprint of development.