Regueiro Ferreira, Rosa MaríaAlonso Fernández, Pablo2023-01-162023-01-162022Energy 266 (2023) 126477http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29879This paper investigates the effect of renewable energy consumption on material consumption, considering the relationship between Material Footrprint and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and testing the assumptions of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. A STIRPAT variation is used to specify a model relating the Material Footprint to renewable energy consumption and GDP. The effect is tested for the Material Footprint of fossil fuels and for the Material Footprint of the other categories. The analysis is applied to the seven European countries with the highest proportion of renewable energy consumption. The model estimation shows that the relationship between GDP and Material Footprint follows an inverted N-shaped form, and that the renewable energy favours the reduction of the material consumption of fossil fuels. However, there is a positive effect between the renewable energy consumption and the Material Footprint of the other categories beyond fossil fuels. These results must be interpreted considering the context, as the development of renewable energy coincides with the effects of the 2008 crisis, which may distort the relation between the variables. To pose dematerialization scenarios, it seems necessary to consider reducing energy consumption even if it comes from renewable sourceseng© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc/4.0/)Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Renewable energyMaterial footprintDematerializationFossil fuelsEnvironmental kuznets curvejournal article10.1016/j.energy.2022.1264770360-5442open access