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61-599: The metric is promoted by the Global Footprint Network which has developed standards to make results comparable. FoDaFo, supported by Global Footprint Network and York University are now providing the national assessments of Footprints and biocapacity. Footprint and biocapacity can be compared at the individual, regional, national or global scale. Both footprint and demands on biocapacity change every year with number of people, per person consumption, efficiency of production, and productivity of ecosystems. At

122-562: A biocapacity for the Earth of 1.6 global hectares per person. These 1.6 global hectares includes the areas for wild species that compete with people for space. An increase in global population can result in a decrease in biocapacity. This is usually due to the fact that the Earth's resources have to be shared; therefore, there becomes little to supply the increasing demand of the increasing population . Currently, this issue can be resolved by outsourcing . However, resources will run out due to

183-622: A 96-home mixed-income housing development in South London , was designed by Bill Dunster Architects and sustainability consultants BioRegional for the Peabody Trust . Despite being populated by relatively average people, BedZED was found to have a footprint of 3.20 gha per capita (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 club. Findhorn Ecovillage ,

244-465: A city, a region, a nation, or humanity as a whole. Footprints can be split into consumption categories: food, housing, and goods and services. Or it can be organized by are types occupied: cropland, pasture, forests for forest products, forests for carbon sequestration, marine areas, etc. When this approach is applied to an activity such as the manufacturing of a product or driving a car, it uses data from life-cycle analysis . Such applications translate

305-406: A few seem to have stabilized or are even beginning to shrink. The information generated by reports at the national, regional and city scales confirm the global trend towards societies becoming less sustainable over time. The UK's average ecological footprint is 5.45 global hectares per capita (gha) with variations between regions ranging from 4.80 gha (Wales) to 5.56 gha (East England). BedZED ,

366-411: 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 2022, humanity has been using natural capital 71% faster than Earth can renew it, which they describe as meaning humanity's ecological footprint corresponds to 1.71 planet Earths. This overuse is called ecological overshoot. Ecological footprint analysis

427-469: 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 yields were lower than those of conventional methods, this could result in the former being "penalized" with a larger ecological footprint. Complementary biodiversity indicators attempt to address this. The WWF 's Living Planet Report combines

488-469: A nation uses more (or less) than is available within its territory, or to what extent the nation's lifestyle and population density would be replicable worldwide. The footprint can be a useful tool to educate people about overconsumption and overpopulation, with the aim of altering personal behavior or public policies. Ecological footprints may be used to argue that current lifestyles and human numbers are not sustainable . Country-by-country comparisons show

549-589: A population exceeds the biocapacity of the environment it lives in, this is called an 'biocapacity deficit'. Such a deficit comes from three sources: overusing one's own ecosystems ("overshoot"), net imports, or use of the global commons. Latest data from Global Footprint Network suggests that humanity was using an equivalence of 1.7 Earths in 2016. The dominant factor of global ecological overshoot comes from carbon dioxide emissions stemming from fossil fuel burning. Additional stresses of greenhouse gases , climate change , and ocean acidification can also aggravate

610-521: 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

671-592: A rural intentional community in Moray , Scotland , had a total footprint of 2.56 gha per capita, 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,

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732-578: A specific population, region, country or part of a world is living in the means of their capital. Accordingly, the study of biocapacity and ecological footprint is known as the Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) . Biocapacity is also affected by the technology used during the year. With new technologies emerging, it is not clear whether the technology in that year is good or bad but the technology does impact resource supply and demand, which in turn affects biocapacity. Hence what

793-619: Is also a high variation within countries, based on individual lifestyles and wealth. In 2022, countries with the top ten per capita ecological footprints were: Qatar (14.3 global hectares), Luxembourg (13.0), Cook Islands (8.3), Bahrain (8.2), United States (8.1), United Arab Emirates (8.1), Canada (8.1), Estonia (8.0), Kuwait (7.9) and Belize (7.9). Total ecological footprint for a nation is found by multiplying its per capita ecological footprint by its total population. Total ecological footprint ranges from 5,540,000,000 global hectares used (China) to 145,000 (Cook Islands) global hectares used. In 2022,

854-624: Is considered “useful” can change from year to year (e.g. use of corn (maize) stover for cellulosic ethanol production would result in corn stover becoming a useful material, and thus increase the biocapacity of maize cropland). Moreover, environmentalists have created ecological footprint calculators for a single person(s) to determine whether they are encompassing more than what is available for them in their population. Consequently, biocapacity results will be applied to their ecological footprint to determine how much they may contribute or take away from sustainable development. In general, biocapacity

915-407: Is far more limited by the amount of sequestration the biosphere can provide rather than by the amounts left underground. The same is true for ores and minerals, where the limiting factor is how much damage to the biosphere we are willing to accept to extract and concentrate those materials, rather than by how much of them is still left underground. Therefore, the focus of ecological footprint accounting

976-406: Is human competition for regenerative resources. The amount of the planet's regeneration, including how many resources are renewed and how much waste it the planet can absorb, is dubbed biocapacity . Ecological footprints therefore track how much biocapacity is needed to provide for all the inputs that human activities demand. It can be calculated at any scale: for an activity, a person, a community,

1037-621: 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 the organisation he has founded, 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 calculations, currently people use Earth's resources at approximately 171% of capacity. This implies that humanity

1098-450: 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 has a marked influence on total consumption and production, with larger populations becoming less sustainable. Most countries around the world continue to become more populous, although

1159-432: Is the amount of resources available to people at a specific moment in time to a specific population ( supply ) and to differentiate between ecological footprint – which is the environmental demand of a regional ecosystem . Biocapacity is able to determine the human impacts on Earth. By determining productivity of land (i.e. the resources available for human consumption), biocapacity will be able to predict and perhaps examine

1220-897: Is the day when humanity has exhausted nature's budget for the year. For the rest of the year, society operates in ecological overshoot by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The first Earth Overshoot Day was December 19, 1987. In 2014, Earth Overshoot Day was August 19. The Earth Overshoot Day in 2015 was on August 13 and on August 8 in 2016. In 2017, Earth Overshoot Day landed on August 2, and in 2020 on August 22. In 2003, Mathis Wackernagel , PhD , and Susan Burns founded Global Footprint Network, an international think-tank headquartered in Oakland, California, with offices in Geneva and Brussels. Wackernagel received an honorary doctorate in December 2007 from

1281-684: Is well over Earth's human carrying capacity at current levels of affluence. According to the GFN: In 2023, Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 2nd. 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

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1342-551: Is widely used around the world in support of sustainability assessments. It enables people to measure and manage the use of resources throughout the economy and explore the sustainability of individual lifestyles , goods and services , organizations, industry sectors , neighborhoods, cities, regions, and nations. The ecological footprint concept and calculation method was developed as the PhD dissertation of Mathis Wackernagel , in collaboration with his supervisor Prof. William Rees at

1403-540: The Environment Agency Abu Dhabi . Every year, Global Footprint Network produced a new edition of its National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts, which calculate Ecological Footprint and biocapacity of more than 200 countries and territories from 1961 to the present. Based on up to 15,000 data points per country per year, these data have been used to influence policy in more than a dozen countries, including Ecuador, France, Germany, Japan, Korea,

1464-795: The UN Comtrade database, the International Energy Agency , and over 20 other sources. In April 2017, Global Footprint Network launched the Ecological Footprint Explorer, an open data platform for the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts. The website provides ecological footprint results for over 200 countries and territories, and encourages researchers, analysts, and decision-makers to visualize and download data. Previously known as Ecological Debt Day, Earth Overshoot Day

1525-538: The University of Bern in Switzerland . 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 from the atmosphere. Biocapacity is used together with ecological footprint as a method of measuring human impact on

1586-488: The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, from 1990 to 1994. The first academic publication about ecological footprints was written by William Rees in 1992. 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

1647-529: The 6 billion people on Earth at that time was about 1.3 hectares per person, which is smaller than the 1.6 global hectares published for 2024, 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

1708-517: 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), with a reply from Goldfinger et al., 2014, and a rejoinder by Giampietro and Saltelli (2014). A joint paper authored by

1769-487: 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 (a measure of standard of living ). The graph shows what

1830-606: The Philippines, Russia, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates. Since 2019, the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts are produced in collaboration between Global Footprint Network, York University , and Footprint Data Foundation. The 2022 Edition of the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts cover 1961-2018 (latest UN data available), and incorporate data from the Food and Agriculture Organization ,

1891-603: 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

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1952-412: 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

2013-401: 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

2074-419: The carbon footprint is reported, it is expressed in weight of CO 2 (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. Ecological footprint accounting is built on the recognition that regenerative resources are the physically most limiting resources of all. Even fossil fuel use

2135-541: The center of decision-making. Global Footprint Network's goal is to create a future where all humans can live well, within the means of one planet Earth . The organization is headquartered in Oakland , California . The Network brings together over 70 partner organizations, including WWF International , ICLEI , Bank Sarasin, The Pictet Group , the New Economics Foundation , Pronatura México , and

2196-555: The consumption of energy , biomass ( food , fiber ), building material , water and other resources into normalized land areas called global hectares (gha) needed to provide these inputs. Since the Global Footprint Network 's inception in 2003, it 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 and Biocapacity Accounts). This task has now been taken over by FoDaFo and York University . The total footprint number of Earths needed to sustain

2257-402: The critical researchers (Giampietro and Saltelli) and proponents (various Global Footprint Network researchers) summarized 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

2318-564: The desk". In 1996, Wackernagel and Rees published the book Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth . 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 lifestyle, a nation's prosperity, or the economic activity of humanity as a whole. The model is a means of comparing lifestyles, per capita consumption, and population numbers, and checking these against biocapacity . The tool can inform policy by examining to what extent

2379-555: 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. Similarly, Newman (2006) has argued that

2440-436: 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

2501-433: The effects on the ecosystems closely based on collected results of human consumption. The biocapacity of an area is calculated by multiplying the actual physical area by the yield factor with the appropriate equivalence factor. Biocapacity is usually expressed in global hectares (gha) . Since global hectares is able to convert human consumptions like food and water into a measurement, biocapacity can be applied to determine

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2562-441: The environment . Biocapacity and ecological footprint are tools created by the Global Footprint Network , used in sustainability studies around the world. Biocapacity is expressed in terms of global hectares per person, thus is dependent on human population. A global hectare is an adjusted unit that represents the average biological productivity of all productive hectares on Earth in a given year (because not all hectares produce

2623-594: 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. Ecological footprint for many years has been used by environmentalists as a way to quantify ecological degradation as it relates to an individual. Recently, there has been debate about the reliability of this method. Global Footprint Network The Global Footprint Network

2684-477: 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,

2745-414: The increasing demands and as a result a collapse of an ecosystem can be the consequence of such actions. When the ecological footprint becomes greater than the biocapacity of the population, a biocapacity deficit is suspected. 'Global biocapacity' is a term sometimes used to describe the total capacity of an ecosystem to support various continuous activity and changes. When the ecological footprint of

2806-433: The inequalities of resource use on this planet. The touristic ecological footprint (TEF) is the ecological footprint of visitors to a particular destination, and depends on the tourists' behavior. Comparisons of TEFs can indicate the benefits of alternative destinations, modes of travel, food choices, types of lodging, and activities. The carbon footprint is a component of the total ecological footprint. Often, when only

2867-521: 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. The world-average ecological footprint in 2013 was 2.8 global hectares per person. The average per country ranges from 14.3 (Qatar) to 0.5 (Yemen) global hectares per person. There

2928-450: The national level is described on the website of the 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. For 2023 Global Footprint Network estimated humanity's ecological footprint as 1.71 planet Earths. According to their calculations this means that humanity's demands were 1.71 times more than what

2989-417: The planet's ecosystems renewed. If this rate of resource use is not reduced, persistent overshoot would suggest the occurrence of continued ecological deterioration and a potentially permanent decrease in Earth's human carrying capacity.     In 2022, the average biologically productive area per person worldwide was approximately 1.6 global hectares (gha) per capita. The U.S. footprint per person

3050-834: The problem. In reference to the definition of biocapacity: 1.7 Earths means the renewable resources are being liquidated because they are being consumed faster than the resources can regenerate. Therefore, it will take one year and eight months for the resources humanity uses in one year to be able to regenerate again, including absorbing all the waste we generate. So instead of taking one year's worth of resources per year, we are yearly consuming resources that should last us one year and eight months. In addition, if this matter becomes severe, an ecological reserve will be set on areas to preserve their ecosystems. Awareness about our depleting resources include: agricultural land , forest resources and rangeland . Biocapacity used in correlation to ecological footprint can therefore suggest whether

3111-405: The resource dependence of cities on rural hinterlands . 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 . Furthermore, such moral conclusions seem to be an argument for autarky . But this is similar to blaming a scale for

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3172-419: The same amount of ecosystem services ). Biocapacity is calculated from United Nations population and land use data, and may be reported at various regional levels, such as a city, a country, or the world as a whole. For example, there were roughly 12.2 billion hectares of biologically productive land and water areas on this planet in 2016. Dividing by the number of people alive in that year, 7.4 billion, gives

3233-772: 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

3294-583: The same. Early criticism was published by van den Bergh 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) was published in June 2008. The European Commission's review found the concept unique and useful for assessing progress on

3355-464: The top ten countries in total ecological footprint were: China (5.54 billion global hectares), United States (2.66 billion), India (1.64 billion), Russian Federation (774 million), Japan (586 million), Brazil (542 million), Indonesia (460 million), Germany (388 million), Republic of Korea (323 million) and Mexico (301 million). These were the ten nations putting the greatest strain on global ecosystem services . The Western Australian government State of

3416-442: The user's dietary choices. Even if true, such criticisms do not negate the value of measuring different cities', regions', or nations' ecological footprints and comparing them. Such assessments can provide helpful insights into the success or failure of different environmental policies. Since this metric tracks biocapacity, the replacement of original ecosystems with high-productivity agricultural monocultures can lead to attributing

3477-454: 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) find that the trends for countries and the world have stayed consistent despite data updates. In addition,

3538-426: 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. 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

3599-449: Was 7.5 gha, and that of Switzerland was 3.7 gha, that of China 3.6 gha, and that of India 1.0 gha. 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 . Wackernagel and Rees originally estimated that the available biological capacity for

3660-410: Was found to have a footprint of 2.4 gha, though with substantial differences in footprints among community members. 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 research found no significant difference between the carbon footprints of green and brown consumers". A 2013 study concluded

3721-527: 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 aim is to develop and promote tools for advancing sustainability, including the ecological footprint and biocapacity , which measure the amount of resources we use and how much we have. These tools aim at bringing ecological limits to

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