Taxing firms' consumption of energy is a blunt instrument: there is no way of telling whether a specific kilowatt-hour was generated from coal-or gas-fired power stations.
ERC, a research firm, says consumption per person was 999 cigarettes a year in 1990 and only 882 in 2012.
According to Seattle-based mobile-market research firm M Metrics, consumption of wireless content has flatlined.
IDC, a market-research firm, says power consumption is now one of systems managers' top five concerns.Power consumption has increased because of the rise of the internet, of course, but also because of way in which computers have historically been designed: to maximise performance at all costs.
According to market research firm Mintel, gelato consumption in the United States has exploded in recent years.
In increasingly post-industrial Shanghai, services already make up 60% of output.Over the past three years, calculates Andy Rothman of Matthews Asia, an investment firm, average annual consumption growth in China has been around 9%.
Since early October, reckons the boss of BP, a big oil firm, America's consumption of crude has fallen by perhaps 2m barrels a day, or about a tenth.
Dragonomics, a Beijing-based research firm, estimates that consumption contributed two-thirds of China's GDP growth in the first half of 2008, up from 44% in 2007.In America weak consumer spending is likely to continue to dampen imports over the next year or so.
Dragonomics, a Beijing-based research firm, estimates that consumption rose from 37% to 40% of China's nominal GDP growth in 2006 and is set to rise again this year.The stronger growth in Chinese consumer spending has got much less attention in America than the sharp increase in the country's trade surplus.
In fact, a minimal- or zero-profit model might even be a base criterion for a true collaborative consumption firm.
