Using Less and Getting More

It often feels like trash is piling up all around us, and that our consumption habits have put us on the road to environmental disaster. Just take a look at recycling bins stacked high with Amazon boxes and takeout containers.

But research shows that we’re actually using fewer resources than we were 25 years ago, a process called “dematerialization.” That’s according to Andrew McAfee, the Co-Director of the Initiative on the Digital Economy at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the author of “More From Less: The Surprising Story of How We Finally Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources - and What Happens Next.” He explains why we’re using less, and whether we can expect that trend to extend into the future.