| Driver | Definition | Major effects | Key interactions | Dominant policy tendency |
| Population growth | Increase in human population | Increases demand for food, energy, materials | Effects mediated by levels of consumption, resource efficiency, technology | Direct policies relatively rare; can be either direction (one-child policy vs. child bonus payments) |
| Economic growth | Increase in GDP | Usually increases resource and energy use | Stimulated by population growth, consumption, technology, trade | Encourage further growth |
| Technology | Technological advances; new ways of doing things become possible | Can increase resource efficiency (e.g. LED lights) or intensify environmental damage (e.g. mechanical forest harvesters) | Affects economic growth, consumption, trade and their impacts | Incentives for advancing particular kinds of technology depend on policy priorities |
| Consumption | Increase in per capita resource use (food, water, energy, materials) | Increases resource extraction, agricultural production, industrial processing, energy use | Generally increases with higher GDP per capita | Most encourage further consumption; some efficiency measures |
| Urbanization | Increased concentration of human population in cities and towns; expansion of urban areas | Can increase consumption through diet and lifestyle shifts; can also encourage resource efficiency (e.g. mass transit) | Affects patterns of consumption and interaction with technology | Economic and social policies incentivize living in urban or rural areas; zoning and urban planning affect land use |
| Trade/ globalization | Increased international trade; long distances between places where resources originate and their products are consumed | Increases transportation of goods; can obscure signals of environmental degradation; impacts of production occur far from where demand originates | Interacts with economic growth, consumption, technology; presents governance challenges | Trade rules encourage particular forms of trade |
| Conflict | Increase in armed conflict and/ or social instability | Can intensify competition and resource extraction; interferes with implementation of rules; reduces security of land tenure | Can be influenced by inequality, climate stress, weak governance | Seek to reduce conflict |
| Weak Governance | Absence of political accountability, due process, legal institutions | Difficult to enforce resource access rules or implement long-term management plans | May co-occur with conflict | Seek to reduce failure |