> Growth doesn’t mean that we make materially more things, but that we make better things. Compared to a torch, a calculator, a phone, a GameBoy, etc… an iPhone

> Growth doesn’t mean that we make materially more things, but that we make better things. Compared to a torch, a calculator, a phone, a GameBoy, etc… an iPhone requires far less raw materials. This can be applied to any industry, so exponential growth is indeed possible. In the debate, this is called decoupling, meaning the decoupling of rising material and/or energy consumption with economic growth. The problem is that absolute decoupling couldn't been shown anywhere, when looking at actual empirical data. This is a pretty exhaustive summary of current research about this: https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/ https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/