Human activities consume resources and produce waste, and as our populations grow and global consumption increases, it is essential that we measure nature’s capacity to meet these demands. The Ecological Footprint has emerged as one of the world’s leading measures of human demand on nature. Simply put, Ecological Footprint Accounting addresses whether the planet is large enough to keep up the demands of humanity.
The Footprint represents two sides of a balance sheet. On the asset side, biocapacity represents the planet’s biologically productive land areas including our forests, pastures, cropland and fisheries. These areas, especially if left unharvested, can also absorb much of the waste we generate, especially our carbon emissions.
Biocapacity can then be compared with humanity’s demand on nature: our Ecological Footprint. The Ecological Footprint represents the productive area required to provide the renewable resources humanity is using and to absorb its waste. The productive area currently occupied by human infrastructure is also included in this calculation, since built-up land is not available for resource regeneration.
Our current global situation: Over the last decades, humanity has been in ecological overshoot with annual demand on resources exceeding what Earth can regenerate each year.
It now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year. We maintain this overshoot by liquidating the Earth’s resources. Overshoot is a vastly underestimated threat to human well-being and the health of the planet, and one that is not adequately addressed.
By measuring the Footprint of a population—an individual, city, business, nation, or all of humanity—we can assess our pressure on the planet, which helps us manage our ecological assets more wisely and take personal and collective action in support of a world where humanity lives within the Earth’s bounds.
Conceived in 1990 by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees at the University of British Columbia, the Ecological Footprint is now in wide use by scientists, businesses, governments, agencies, individuals, and institutions working to monitor ecological resource use and advance sustainable development.
DO WE HAVE A CHOICE?
Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year.
Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue, by the 2050s, we will need the equivalent of three Earths to support us. And of course, we only have one.
YES!!
Individuals and institutions worldwide must begin to recognize ecological limits. We must begin to make ecological limits central to our decision-making and use human ingenuity to find new ways to live, within the Earth’s bounds.
This means investing in technology and infrastructure that will allow us to operate in a resource-constrained world. It means taking individual action, and creating the public demand for businesses and policy makers to participate.
Tasks:
- Search the web for more information about the concept of Ecological Footprint.
- Calculate your Ecological Footprint online and compare it with the other members of your group
- Consider how your daily activities (nutrition, transportation, clothing, etc.) can affect your Ecological Footprint?
- Think about ways that we can reduce our Ecological Footprint as individuals.
- Be prepared to calculate your Ecological Footprint during the training course on a paper based version and get ready for discussion!!
Credits: Most of the material presented here is from the website of the Global Footprint Network.
https://www.footprintnetwork.org/