![World map of countries by ecological deficit (2013)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/World_map_of_countries_by_ecological_deficit_%282013%29.svg)
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the
Global Footprint Network
The Global Footprint Network was founded in 2003 and is an independent think tank originally based in the United States, Belgium and Switzerland. It was established as a charitable not-for-profit organization in each of those three countries. Its ...
to measure human demand on
natural capital
Natural capital is the world's stock of natural resources, which includes geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms. Some natural capital assets provide people with free goods and services, often called ecosystem services. All of t ...
, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy.
It tracks this demand through an
ecological accounting Environmental accounting is a subset of accounting proper, its target being to incorporate both economic and environmental information. It can be conducted at the corporate level or at the level of a national economy through the System of Integrate ...
system. The accounts contrast the biologically productive area people use for their consumption to the biologically productive area available within a region or the world (
biocapacity
The biocapacity or biological capacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chem ...
, the productive area that can regenerate what people demand from nature). In short, it is a measure of
human impact on the environment
Human impact on the environment (or anthropogenic impact) refers to changes to biophysical environments and to ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans. Modifying the environment to fit the need ...
.
Footprint and biocapacity can be compared at the individual, regional, national or global scale. Both footprint and biocapacity change every year with number of people, per person consumption, efficiency of production, and productivity of ecosystems. At a global scale, footprint assessments show how big humanity's demand is compared to what Earth can renew. Global Footprint Network estimates that, as of 2014, humanity has been using
natural capital
Natural capital is the world's stock of natural resources, which includes geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms. Some natural capital assets provide people with free goods and services, often called ecosystem services. All of t ...
1.7 times as fast as Earth can renew it, which they describe as meaning humanity's ecological footprint corresponds to 1.7 planet Earths.
[Lin, D; Hanscom, L; Murthy, A; Galli, A; Evans, M; Neill, E; Mancini, MS; Martindill, J; Medouar, F-Z; Huang, S; Wackernagel, M. (2018). "Ecological Footprint Accounting for Countries: Updates and Results of the National Footprint Accounts, 2012–2018". ''Resources''. 7(3): 58. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources7030058]
Ecological footprint analysis is widely used around the world in support of
sustainability
Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
assessments.
It enables people to measure and manage the use of resources throughout the economy and explore the sustainability of individual
lifestyle
Lifestyle often refers to:
* Lifestyle (sociology), the way a person lives
* ''Otium'', ancient Roman concept of a lifestyle
* Style of life (german: Lebensstil, link=no), dealing with the dynamics of personality
Lifestyle may also refer to:
Bus ...
s,
goods and services
Goods are items that are usually (but not always) tangible, such as pens, physical books, salt, apples, and hats. Services are activities provided by other people, who include architects, suppliers, contractors, technologists, teachers, doctor ...
, organizations,
industry sector
Industry classification or industry taxonomy is a type of economic taxonomy that classifies companies, organizations and traders into industrial groupings based on similar production processes, similar products, or similar behavior in financial m ...
s, neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations.
Overview
The first academic publication about ecological footprints was written by William Rees in 1992. The ecological footprint concept and calculation method was developed as the PhD dissertation of Mathis Wackernagel
Mathis Wackernagel is a Swiss-born sustainability advocate. He is President of Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think tank with offices in Oakland, California; Brussels, Belgium, and Geneva, Switzerland. The think-tank ...
, under Rees' supervision at the University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
in Vancouver, Canada, from 1990 to 1994. Originally, Wackernagel and Rees called the concept "appropriated carrying capacity". To make the idea more accessible, Rees came up with the term "ecological footprint", inspired by a computer technician who praised his new computer's "small footprint on the desk". In 1996, Wackernagel and Rees published the book ''Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth''.[Wackernagel, M. and W. Rees. 1996. ''Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth''. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers. .]
The simplest way to define an ecological footprint is the amount of environmental resources necessary to produce the goods and services that support an individual's particular lifestyle.
The model is a means of comparing consumption and lifestyles, and checking this against biocapacity
The biocapacity or biological capacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chem ...
. The tool can inform policy by examining to what extent a nation uses more (or less) than is available within its territory, or to what extent the nation's lifestyle would be replicable worldwide. The footprint can also be a useful tool to educate people about overconsumption
Overconsumption describes a situation where a consumer overuses their available goods and services to where they can't, or don't want to, replenish or reuse them. In microeconomics, this may be described as the point where the marginal cost of a ...
, with the aim of altering personal behavior. Ecological footprints may be used to argue that many current lifestyles are not sustainable
Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...
. Country-by-country comparisons show the inequalities of resource use on this planet.
The GHG footprint
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...
or the more narrow carbon footprint
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...
are a component of the ecological footprint. Often, when only the carbon footprint is reported, it is expressed in weight of (or CO2e representing GHG warming potential (GGWP)), but it can also be expressed in land areas like ecological footprints. Both can be applied to products, people or whole societies.
Methodology
The focus of ecological footprint accounting is renewable resources. The total amount of such resources which the planet produces according to this model has been dubbed biocapacity. Ecological footprints can be calculated at any scale: for an activity, a person, a community, a city, a town, a region, a nation, or humanity as a whole. Footprint values are categorized for carbon, food, housing, goods and services. This approach can be applied to an activity such as the manufacturing of a product or driving of a car. This resource accounting is similar to life-cycle analysis
Life cycle assessment or LCA (also known as life cycle analysis) is a methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case o ...
wherein the consumption of energy
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...
, biomass
Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms bi ...
(food
Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...
, fiber
Fiber or fibre (from la, fibra, links=no) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often incorporate ...
), building material
Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rock (geology), rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materia ...
, water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
and other resources
Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their a ...
are converted into a normalized measure of land area called global hectare
The global hectare (gha) is a measurement unit for the ecological footprint of people or activities and the biocapacity of the Earth or its regions. One global hectare is the world's annual amount of biological production for human use and human wa ...
s (gha).
Since 2003, Global Footprint Network
The Global Footprint Network was founded in 2003 and is an independent think tank originally based in the United States, Belgium and Switzerland. It was established as a charitable not-for-profit organization in each of those three countries. Its ...
has calculated the ecological footprint from UN data sources for the world as a whole and for over 200 nations (known as the National Footprint Accounts). The total footprint number of Earths needed to sustain the world's population at that level of consumption are also calculated. Every year the calculations are updated to the latest year with complete UN statistics. The time series are also recalculated with every update since UN statistics sometimes correct historical data sets. Results are available on an open data platform. Lin ''et al.'' (2018) finds that the trends for countries and the world have stayed consistent despite data updates. Also, a recent study by the Swiss Ministry of Environment independently recalculated the Swiss trends and reproduced them within 1–4% for the time period that they studied (1996–2015). Since 2006, a first set of ecological footprint standards exist that detail both communication and calculation procedures. The latest version are the updated standards from 2009.
The ecological footprint accounting method at the national level is described on the website of Global Footprint Network[ or in greater detail in academic papers, including Borucke ''et al.'']
The National Accounts Review Committee has published a research agenda on how to improve the accounts.
Footprint measurements
For 2019 Global Footprint Network estimated humanity's ecological footprint as 1.75 planet Earths.[Beyers, B., Wackernagel, M. (2019). ''Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budget.'' Canada: New Society Publishers, p.5. ISBN: 9780865719118.] According to their calculations this means that humanity's demands were 1.75 times more than what the planet's ecosystems renewed.
If this rate of resource use is not reduced, the model predicts continued ecological deterioration and perhaps a permanent decrease in Earth’s human carrying capacity.
In 2007, the average biologically productive area per person worldwide was approximately 1.8 global hectare
The global hectare (gha) is a measurement unit for the ecological footprint of people or activities and the biocapacity of the Earth or its regions. One global hectare is the world's annual amount of biological production for human use and human wa ...
s (gha) per capita. The U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
footprint per capita was 9.0 gha, and that of Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
was 5.6 gha, while China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
's was 1.8 gha.[Chambers, N. et al. (2004) ''Scotland's Footprint''. Best Foot Forward. .] In its Living Planet Report 2022, the WWF documents a 69% decline in the world's vertebrate populations between 1970 and the present, and links this decline to humanity greatly exceeding global biocapacity
The biocapacity or biological capacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chem ...
. Wackernagel and Rees originally estimated that the available biological capacity for the 6 billion people on Earth at that time was about 1.3 hectares per person, which is smaller than the 1.8 global hectares published for 2006, because the initial studies neither used global hectares nor included bioproductive marine areas.
According to the 2018 edition of the ''National footprint accounts'', humanity's total ecological footprint has exhibited an increasing trend since 1961, growing an average of 2.1% per year (SD= 1.9). Humanity's ecological footprint was 7.0 billion gha in 1961 and increased to 20.6 billion gha in 2014, a function of higher per capita resource use and population increase.[Rees, W. E. (2014). ''Avoiding collapse: An agenda for sustainable degrowth and relocalizing the economy''. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, BC Office.] The world-average ecological footprint in 2014 was 2.8 global hectares per person. The carbon footprint is the fastest growing part of the ecological footprint and accounts currently for about 60% of humanity's total ecological footprint.
The Earth's biocapacity has not increased at the same rate as the ecological footprint. The increase of biocapacity averaged at only 0.5% per year (SD = 0.7). Because of agricultural intensification, biocapacity was at 9.6 billion gha in 1961 and grew to 12.2 billion gha in 2016.
However, this increased biocapacity for people came at the expense of other species. Agricultural intensification involved increased fertilizer use which led to eutrophication of streams and ponds; increased pesticide use which decimated pollinator populations; increased water withdrawals which decreased river health; and decreased land left wild or fallow which decreased wildlife populations on agricultural lands. This reminds us that ecological footprint calculations are anthropocentric, assuming that all Earth’s biocapacity is legitimately available to human beings. If we assume that some biocapacity should be left for other species, the level of ecological overshoot increases.
According to Wackernagel and his organisation, the Earth has been in " overshoot", where humanity is using more resources and generating waste at a pace that the ecosystem cannot renew, since the 1970s. According to the Global Footprint Network’s (GFN) calculations, currently people use Earth’s resources at approximately 175% of capacity. This implies that humanity is well over Earth’s human carrying capacity at current levels of affluence. According to the GFN:In 2022, Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 28. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year. For the rest of the year, we are maintaining our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We are operating in overshoot.
Currently, more than 85% of humanity lives in countries that run an ecological deficit. This means their citizens use more resources and generate more waste and pollution than can be sustained by the biocapacity found within their national boundaries. In some cases, countries are running an ecological deficit because their per capita ecological footprints are higher than the hectares of bioproductive land available on average globally (this was estimated at <1.7 hectares per person in 2019). Examples include France, Germany and Saudi Arabia. In other cases, per capita resource use may be lower than the global available average, but countries are running an ecological deficit because their populations are high enough that they still use more bioproductive land than they have within their national borders. Examples include China, India and the Philippines. Finally, many countries run an ecological deficit because of both high per capita resource use and large populations; such countries tend to be way over their national available biocapacities. Examples include Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
According to William Rees, writing in 2011, "the average world citizen has an eco-footprint of about 2.7 global average hectares while there are only 2.1 global hectare of bioproductive land and water per capita on earth. This means that humanity has already overshot global biocapacity by 30% and now lives unsustainabily by depleting stocks of 'natural capital'."
Since then, due to population growth and further refinements in the calculations, available biocapacity per person has decreased to <1.7 hectares per person globally. More recently, Rees has written:The human enterprise is in potentially disastrous ‘overshoot’, exploiting the ecosphere beyond ecosystems’ regenerative capacity and filling natural waste sinks to overflowing. Economic behavior that was once ‘rational’ has become maladaptive. This situation is the inevitable outcome of humanity’s natural expansionist tendencies reinforced by ecologically vacuous growth-oriented ‘neoliberal’ economic theory.
Rees now believes that economic and demographic degrowth are necessary to create societies with small enough ecological footprints to remain sustainable and avoid civilizational collapse.
Footprint by country
The world-average ecological footprint in 2013 was 2.8 global hectares per person. The average per country ranges from over 10 to under 1 global hectares per person. There is also a high variation within countries, based on individual lifestyle and economic possibilities.[
The ]Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
n government State of the Environment Report included an Ecological Footprint measure for the average Western Australian seven times the average footprint per person on the planet in 2007, a total of about 15 hectares.
The figure (right) examines sustainability at the scale of individual countries by contrasting their Ecological Footprint with their UN Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...
(a measure of standard of living
Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available, generally applied to a society or location, rather than to an individual. Standard of living is relevant because it is considered to contribute to an individual's quality ...
). The graph shows what is necessary for countries to maintain an acceptable standard of living for their citizens while, at the same time, maintaining sustainable resource use. The general trend is for higher standards of living to become less sustainable. As always, population growth
Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually, or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to ...
has a marked influence on levels of consumption and the efficiency of resource use. The sustainability goal is to raise the global standard of living without increasing the use of resources beyond globally sustainable levels; that is, to not exceed "one planet" consumption. The information generated by reports at the national, regional and city scales confirm the global trend towards societies that are becoming less sustainable over time.
Studies in the United Kingdom
The UK's average ecological footprint is 5.45 global hectare
The global hectare (gha) is a measurement unit for the ecological footprint of people or activities and the biocapacity of the Earth or its regions. One global hectare is the world's annual amount of biological production for human use and human wa ...
s per capita (gha) with variations between regions ranging from 4.80 gha (Wales) to 5.56 gha (East England).[
]BedZED
Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) is an environmentally friendly housing development in Hackbridge, London, England. It is in the London Borough of Sutton, north-east of the town of Sutton itself. Designed to create zero carbon e ...
, a 96-home mixed-income housing
The definition of mixed-income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Following Brophy and Smith, the following will discuss “non-organic” examples of mixed-income housing, meaning “a deliberate effort to ...
development in South London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, was designed by Bill Dunster Architects and sustainability consultants BioRegional for the Peabody Trust
The Peabody Trust was founded in 1862 as the Peabody Donation Fund and now brands itself simply as Peabody. . Despite being populated by relatively average people, BedZED was found to have a footprint of 3.20 gha (not including visitors), due to on-site renewable energy production, energy-efficient architecture, and an extensive green lifestyles program that included London's first carsharing
Carsharing or car sharing (AU, NZ, CA, TH, & US) or car clubs (UK) is a model of car rental where people rent cars for short periods of time, often by the hour. It differs from traditional car rental in that the owners of the cars are often pri ...
club. Findhorn Ecovillage
Findhorn Ecovillage is an experimental architectural community project based at The Park, in Moray, Scotland, near the village of Findhorn.Local relations between the Findhorn Foundation and the village of Findhorn have occasionally foundered ove ...
, a rural intentional community
An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...
in Moray
Moray () gd, Moireibh or ') is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with a coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland.
Between 1975 ...
, Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, had a total footprint of 2.56 gha, including both the many guests and visitors who travel to the community. However, the residents alone had a footprint of 2.71 gha, a little over half the UK national average and one of the lowest ecological footprints of any community measured so far in the industrialized world. Keveral Farm, an organic farming community in Cornwall, was found to have a footprint of 2.4 gha, though with substantial differences in footprints among community members.
Ecological footprint at the individual level
In a 2012 study of consumers acting 'green' vs. 'brown' (where green people are "expected to have significantly lower ecological impact than 'brown' consumers"), the conclusion was "the research found no significant difference between the carbon footprints of green and brown consumers". A 2013 study concluded the same.
Reviews and critiques
Early criticism was published by van den Bergh Van den Bergh, Van Den Bergh is a Dutch surname, a variant of Van den Berg. Notable people with the surname include:
*Arnold van den Bergh (notary) (1886‒1950), Amsterdam civil law notary
*Dave van den Bergh (born 1976), Dutch footballer
*Dimitr ...
and Verbruggen in 1999, which was updated in 2014. Their colleague Fiala published similar criticism in 2008.
A comprehensive review commissioned by the Directorate-General for the Environment (European Commission)
Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV) is a Directorate-General of the European Commission, responsible for the Environmental policy of the European Union. In 2010 "relevant limate changeactivities in DG Environment" were moved to the new ...
was published in June 2008. The European Commission's review found the concept unique and useful for assessing progress on the EU's Resource Strategy. They also recommended further improvements in data quality, methodologies and assumptions.
Blomqvist ''et al.''. published a critical paper in 2013. It led to a reply from Rees and Wackernagel (2013), and a rejoinder by Blomqvist ''et al.'' (2013).
An additional strand of critique is from Giampietro and Saltelli (2014),[Giampietro, M. Saltelli A. (2014a): Footprint to nowhere, Ecological Indicators 46: 610–621.] with a reply from Goldfinger et al., 2014, and a rejoinder by Giampietro and Saltelli (2014). A joint paper authored by the critical researchers (Giampietro and Saltelli) and proponents (various Global Footprint Network researchers) summarised the terms of the controversy in a paper published by the journal Ecological indicators. Additional comments were offered by van den Bergh and Grazi (2015).
A number of national government agencies have performed collaborative or independent research to test the reliability of the ecological footprint accounting method and its results. They have largely confirmed the accounts' results; those who reproduced the assessment generating near-identical results. Such reviews include those of Switzerland, Germany, France, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates and the European Commission.
Global Footprint Network has summarized methodological limitations and criticism in a comprehensive report available on its website.
Some researchers have misinterpreted ecological footprint accounting as a social theory or a policy guideline, while in reality it is merely a metric that adds up human demands that compete for the planet's regenerative capacity. Examples of such confusions include Grazi ''et al.'' (2007) who performed a systematic comparison of the ecological footprint method with spatial welfare analysis that includes environmental externalities
In economics, an externality or external cost is an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity. Externalities can be considered as unpriced goods involved in either co ...
, agglomeration effects and trade advantages. Not recognizing that the ecological footprint is merely a metric, they conclude that the footprint method does not lead to maximum social welfare. Similarly, Newman
Newman is a surname of English origin and may refer to many people:
The surname Newman is widespread in the core Anglosphere.
A
*Abram Newman (1736–1799), British grocer
*Adrian Newman (disambiguation), multiple people
*Al Newman (born 1960) ...
(2006) has argued that the ecological footprint concept may have an anti-urban bias, as it does not consider the opportunities created by urban growth. He argues that calculating the ecological footprint for densely populated areas, such as a city or small country with a comparatively large population—e.g. New York and Singapore respectively—may lead to the perception of these populations as "parasitic". But in reality, ecological footprints just document the resource dependence of cities—like a fuel gauge documents a car's fuel availability. Newman questions the metric because these communities have little intrinsic biocapacity, and instead must rely upon large ''hinterland
Hinterland is a German word meaning "the land behind" (a city, a port, or similar). Its use in English was first documented by the geographer George Chisholm in his ''Handbook of Commercial Geography'' (1888). Originally the term was associated ...
s''. Critics argue that this is a dubious characterization since farmers in developed nations may easily consume more resources than urban inhabitants, due to transportation requirements and the unavailability of economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
. Furthermore, such moral conclusions seem to be an argument for autarky
Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency, usually applied to societies, communities, states, and their economic systems.
Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements, especially ...
. This is similar to blaming a scale for the user's dietary choices. Some even take this train of thought a step further, claiming that the footprint denies the benefits of trade. Therefore such critics argue that the footprint can only be applied globally. Others have made the opposite argument showing that national assessments do provide helpful insights.
Since this metric tracks biocapacity, the replacement of original ecosystems with high-productivity agricultural monoculture
In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time. Monoculture is widely used in intensive farming and in organic farming: both a 1,000-hectare/acre cornfield and a 10-ha/acre field of organic kale are ...
s can lead to attributing a higher biocapacity to such regions. For example, replacing ancient woodlands or tropical forests with monoculture forests or plantations may therefore decrease the ecological footprint. Similarly if organic farming
Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on organic production and labelling of organic products and re ...
yields were lower than those of conventional methods, this could result in the former being "penalized" with a larger ecological footprint. Complementary biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
indicators attempt to address this. The WWF's Living Planet Report
The ''Living Planet Report'' is published every two years by the World Wide Fund for Nature since 1998. It is based on the Living Planet Index and ecological footprint calculations.
The ''Living Planet Report'' is the world's leading, science- ...
combines the footprint calculations with the Living Planet Index of biodiversity. A modified ecological footprint that takes biodiversity into account has been created for use in Australia.
See also
* Biocapacity
The biocapacity or biological capacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chem ...
* Carbon footprint
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...
* Carrying capacity
The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as t ...
* Dependency theory
Dependency theory is the notion that resources flow from a "periphery" of poor and underdeveloped states to a "core" of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former. A central contention of dependency theory is that poor s ...
* Earth Overshoot Day
Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) is the calculated illustrative calendar date on which humanity's resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year. The term " overshoot" represents the level by which h ...
formerly also called Ecological Debt Day
* Ecological economics
* Ecosystem valuation Ecosystem valuation is an economic process which assigns a value (either monetary, biophysical, or other) to an ecosystem and/or its ecosystem services. By quantifying, for example, the human welfare benefits of a forest to reduce flooding and erosi ...
* Environmental impact assessment
Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the term "environmental imp ...
* Greenhouse debt Greenhouse debt is the measure to which an individual person, incorporated association, business enterprise, government instrumentality or / nd(per Neb., USA) geographic community exceeds its permitted greenhouse footprint and contributes greenhous ...
* Greenhouse gas emissions accounting
Greenhouse gas inventories are emission inventories of greenhouse gas emissions that are developed for a variety of reasons. Scientists use inventories of natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions as tools when developing atmospheric m ...
* Happy Planet Index
The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact that was introduced by the New Economics Foundation in 2006. Each country's HPI value is a function of its average subjective life satisfaction, life expectanc ...
* Human Footprint
* Life cycle assessment
Life cycle assessment or LCA (also known as life cycle analysis) is a methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case of ...
* List of countries by ecological footprint
This is a list of countries by ecological footprint. The table is based on data spanning from 1961 to 2013 from the
Global Footprint Network's National Footprint Accounts published in 2016. Numbers are given in global hectares per capita. Th ...
* Netherlands fallacy The Netherlands fallacy refers to an error Paul R. Ehrlich and his co-authors claim others make in assuming that the environmental impacts of the Netherlands and other rich nations are contained within their national borders.
Environmentalists sin ...
* ''Our Common Future
__NOTOC__
''Our Common Future'', also known as the Brundtland Report, was published on October 1987 by the United Nations through the Oxford University Press. This publication was in recognition of Gro Harlem Brundtland's, former Norwegian Prime M ...
''
* Overshoot (population)
In environmental science, the concept of overshoot means demand in excess of regeneration. It can apply to animal populations and people. Environmental science studies to what extent human populations through their resource consumption have risen ...
* Physical balance of trade
* Simon–Ehrlich wager The Simon–Ehrlich wager was a 1980 scientific wager between business professor Julian L. Simon and biologist Paul Ehrlich, betting on a mutually agreed-upon measure of resource scarcity over the decade leading up to 1990. The widely-followed con ...
* Social metabolism
Social metabolism or socioeconomic metabolism is the set of flows of materials and energy that occur between nature and society, between different societies, and within societies. These human-controlled material and energy flows are a basic featu ...
* ''The Limits to Growth
''The Limits to Growth'' (''LTG'') is a 1972 report that discussed the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation. The study used the World3 computer model to simula ...
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* Water footprint
A water footprint shows the extent of water use in relation to consumption by people. The water footprint of an individual, community, or business is defined as the total volume of fresh water used to produce the goods and services consumed by th ...
References
Further reading
* Rees, W. E. and M. Wackernagel (1994) Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: Measuring the natural capital requirements of the human economy, in Jansson, A. ''et al.'' ''Investing in Natural Capital: The Ecological Economics Approach to Sustainability''. Washington D.C.:Island Press.
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* Lenzen, M. and Murray, S. A. 2003. ''The Ecological Footprint – Issues and Trends''
ISA Research Paper 01-03
* Chambers, N., Simmons, C. and Wackernagel, M. (2000), ''Sharing Nature's Interest: Ecological Footprints as an Indicator of Sustainability''. Earthscan, London (see also http://www.ecologicalfootprint.com)
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External links
WWF "Living Planet Report"
a biannual calculation of national and global footprints
a quarterly calculation of city footprints in Canada
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US Environmental Footprint Factsheet
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Interview with Bill Rees
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ecological Footprint
Sustainability metrics and indices
Economic indicators
Waste minimisation
Human impact on the environment
Human ecology
Ecological economics
Environmental social science concepts
Environmental terminology