This could be because an increasing share of value added is being generated by economic activities that are not material intensive, such as the services sector, while materialintensive manufacturing is being outsourced to non-OECD countries. The share of value added from the services sector in OECD countries increased from around 50% in 1970 to 66% in the eraly 1990s and to over 70% today (OECD, 2014). The decoupling is absolute when population is decreasing faster than material extraction per capita.