Advances in production efficiency do not lead to decrease of demand for material resources.

Eventually, scarcity of the resources will raise the price for them, and that may lead to use of less resources. The problem is that if pollution and other harmful side effects are not charged to whoever extracts the resources, they will "cure" the scarcity by extracting more and more.

This is where we need a democratic state to impose taxes high enough to discourage use of the resources.