Environmental scientist studies Western consumerism

Many people are not aware of the environmental and social impacts of our consumption, according to Professor Manfred Lenzen, Director of the Integrated Sustainability Analysis Research Group (ISA) at the School of Physics. "When consumers reach for a product from the shelf or in a department store, they don't realise the enormous environmental and social impact that the product can have globally," he said. With funding from a seed grant, Professor Lenzen's project, titled From centres of consumption to environmental hot spots: how international trade facilitates pressure on water and resources , will use super computer-aided quantitative modelling of environmentally destructive global supply chains. "Developing nations are paying a high price for Western consumption with the exploitation of a cheap labour market, environmental pollution, forests being degraded and species threatened. Our consumer habits even support armed conflict. "Almost everyone has a mobile phone but most consumers don't know that a key component in the manufacture of mobile phones is tantalum, an element that is mined in the Congo, where there is civil war. Revenues derived from the mining of tantalum often end up funding weapons for rebel groups.