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The IPAT Model

Running head: The IPAT Model

The IPAT Model
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Introduction
	Evidently, the world population is growing at a very fast pace; a number amounting to over seven billion people compared to the two billion people in 1990 (UNDP, 2008). It is an explosion that has left several environmental scientists and sociologists wondering whether in the near-future there will be enough natural resources on Earth to adequately support this ever-expanding population. Again, it can be imagined that the more the people, the higher the demand for basic necessities such as food, water and even energy. Conversely, population cannot be assumed as the only facet impacting the environment together with the availability of resources. Scientists observe that there are other variables like the human consumption habits in this growing population and the types of technology used by these individuals that have significant impacts on the overall environmental health (Ehrlich, 2008). Thus, in order to better understand the causes of the environmental sustainability problem, IPAT equation is the only place to start; which is a classic attempt demonstrating the correlation between human population and its respective impacts on the environment. Even though many people may perceive population as the greatest influence on humans' impact, this paper will adequately begin by explaining the truth behind IPAT model before demonstrating that an individual's affluence (consumption) has a greater impact, coupled with the technology resources. Furthermore, while trying to describe this equation's outcome (impact), the paper will provide a recent data on human population (P), describe the imminent feeling of social responsibility in reducing one's impact, explore some of the technology trends and ways organizations are attempting to reduce the impact and some of the designed techniques and products, on top of relating this theory and data to personal responsibility in the society. 
Understanding the IPAT Model 
	IPAT model (Impact = Population. Affluence. Technology), is a famous formula that was introduced by a biologist Paul Ehrlich and scientist John Holden in the year 1971 (Ehrlich, 2008). In other words, environmental impact remains to be the population product, multiplied by the amount of required resources/created wastes, multiplied by consumption of each individual while generating each consumption unit (Dornfeld, 2014). Ehrlich applied this formula so as to demonstrate that population growth is the dominant factor behind environmental harm. In real sense, several conventional times have proven that there are diverse elements behind this phenomenon such as the increment of arable areas in manifold parts of Africa around 1980s and its respective deforestation, was mostly driven by population increase. It was an era that witnessed limited rise in agricultural products' consumption per person, alongside little yields' improvement. On the contrary, the1940s dramatic rise of human chlorofluorocarbons output occurred mainly due to the inception of a novel technology (UNDP, 2008).
The Impact (I) as per Recent Data on Human Population (P)
	In accordance with the Population Reference Bureau, human population has significantly elevated over the past decade. For instance, while in the entire world there were 6.5 billion persons in 2007, the year 2017 witnessed a significant increase in the number of individuals; amounting to about 7.5 billion people. Experts have prospected this number to have risen over 9 billion come the year 2050 (UNDP, 2008). While scholars note over four-hundred thousand births per day, together with less than half this amount of fatalities, I see an overwhelming global overpopulation that is incessant.  
	Arguably, overpopulation principally results to affluence (A), which as aforementioned, refers to the population's consumption. For instance, currently the global population is made up of about 5%, and they consume about 24% of the world's energy; a phenomenon that is comprised of a detrimental impact on the natural resources (Ehrlich, 2008). In this regard, it has to be noted that, even though gross domestic production (GDP) remains to be a vital statistic (according to research), it is quite essential to remember that it is always a gross measure of economic production and never a national health measure. For example, a population that is overworked and underpaid, or even in a case where the environment is suffering excessively, then national well-being will be low. Moreover, high GDP may also imply that there is more energy saving, sustainable consumption, recycling technologies and even affluent environmental regulations (Wang et al, 2012). Therefore, while environmental impacts may be pressured by human actions in some areas, the effects often take place in varied places because of the globalized human and environmental systems' nature. A good example is whereby an economic activity in a certain region has the potential of causing resource extraction in other regions or even lead to pollution; spreading to other locations. 
The Social Responsibility and Current Technology Trends of Reducing Impact
	Over the past years, the IPAT equation has taken various forms as a way of examining a significant transition among various environmentalists toward a more inclining view of the role technology may assume in sustainable development. Even though this equation was at one time applied in determining the lone variable that had the most tormenting impact on the environment, an industrial perspective has reversed this usage, confirming that population increases and affluence, mainly, be balanced by enhancements to the surroundings presented by technological systems (Ehrlich, 2008). 
	In essence, societal expectations that companies use their resources in a socially responsible way, over the past thirty years have developed exponentially. As a consequence, technology remains to be a principal driver of this trend of enabling stakeholders to have a greater access to data. Sensibly, the rapid as well as all-encompassing technological advancements has awarded managers strategies and tools through which they can successfully address their corporate social responses. Since the inception of the information age, technology has been applied as a tool to elevate reduce alongside reducing costs (Wang et al, 2012). Again, technology may be seen as an integral constituent between social responsiveness abstraction and its respective practical reality. 
Conclusion 
	The issues concerning population growth conventionally revolved the notion that there can be lack or limited arable land, energy or minerals to meet the requirements of the exponentially increasing human population. In the current society, fears are that increase in technological advancements and wealth automatically will increase natural resources consumption; an aspect coupled by discharged wastes. Consequently, there is that fear, which is compounded on a fallacy that even if the world will not run out of resources, the assimilative capacities of the Earth might be overwhelmed. Plausibly, it can be agreed that all these facets conspire to environmental impacts increase, with potentially calamitous impacts on human health. 

References
Dornfeld, D. A. (2014). Moving towards green and sustainable manufacturing. International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing-Green Technology, 1(1), 63-66.
Ehrlich, P.R. 2008. “Demography and Policy: A View from Outside the Discipline.” Population and Development. Review 34: 103–113.
United Nations Development Program [UNDP]. 2008. Human Development Report 2007/2008: Statistical Update2008. Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/
Wang, Z., Yin, F., Zhang, Y., & Zhang, X. (2012). An empirical research on the influencing factors of regional CO2 emissions: evidence from Beijing city, China. Applied Energy, 100, 277-284.