Footprint Basics - Introduction

You’ve probably heard of the Ecological Footprint - the metric that allows us to
calculate human pressure on the planet and come up with facts, such as: If everyone
lived the lifestyle of the average American we would need five planets.

This section of our Web site explains how the Ecological Footprint works in basic
terms. It examines the benefits of ecological accounting, introduces some of the most
important Footprint findings, and addresses provocative questions: Do we fit on the
planet? How can the Footprint foster sustainable human development? How do
carbon emissions contribute to humanity’s Ecological Footprint?

Footprint Basics - Overview

Humanity needs what nature provides, but how do we know how much we’re using
and how much we have to use?

The Ecological Footprint has emerged as the world’s premier measure of humanity’s
demand on nature. It measures how much land and water area a human population
requires to produce the resource it consumes and to absorb its wastes, using prevailing
technology.
Our current global situation: Since the late 1970s, 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 five 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.

Footprint for Nations

In today’s world, where humanity is already exceeding planetary limits, ecological
assets are becoming more critical. Each country has its own ecological risk profile:
Many are running ecological deficits, with Footprints larger than their own biological
capacity. Others depend heavily on resources from elsewhere, which are under
increasing pressure.

In some areas of the world, the implications of ecological deficits can be devastating,
leading to resource loss, ecosystem collapse, debt, poverty, famine and war.

The Ecological Footprint is a resource accounting tool that helps countries understand
their ecological balance sheet and gives them the data necessary to manage their
resources and secure their future.

National governments using the Footprint are able to:

1. Assess the value of their country’s ecological assets

2. Monitor and manage their assets
3. Identify the risks associated with ecological deficits
4. Set policy that is informed by ecological reality and makes safeguarding
resources a top priority
5. Measure progress toward their goals

It is almost certainly the case that countries and regions with surplus ecological
reserves—not the ones relying on continued ecological deficit spending—will emerge
as the robust and sustainable economies and societies of the future.
* Time series data for all nations not available. See 2009 Data Tables for more
information.

Ecological Creditors and Debtors

The Ecological Power of Nations

Today, 81 percent of the world’s population lives in countries that use more resources
than what is renewably available within their own borders. These countries rely for
their needs on resource surpluses concentrated in ecological creditor countries, which
use less biocapacity than they have.  By comparison, in 1961, the vast majority of
countries around the globe had ecological surpluses. Those numbers have slowly
dwindled; meanwhile, the pressure on the remaining biocapacity reserves continues to
grow.

Global Footprint Network has launched an Ecological Creditor and Debtor Initiative
in partnership with the Community of Andean Nations (CAN) to initiate a dialogue on
the growing significance of biocapacity. It aims to show the interdependence between
a country’s biocapacity, its economy and ultimately, the well-being of its people.
As resource pressures escalate, ecological wealth will play an increasing role in
determining countries’ competitiveness and its citizens’ ability to lead secure,
rewarding lives. Through collaboration, countries can better secure the value of their
natural resources and build incentives for maintaining those assets, a benefit to both
their own citizens and to the global economy that relies upon these resources.
Is the Ecological Creditor/Debtor Framework Anti-trade?

In a globalized economy, trade is a fact of life. Though we’ve introduced the concept
of ecological creditors and debtors, we do not mean to imply, by comparing a
population’s consumption with its own biocapacity. that countries “should” consume
within their own borders and not engage in global trade. But just as a trade deficit can
be a liability, so can a biocapacity deficit – in particular if, are because of that deficit,
a country finds itself at risk of depleting its own natural capital, incurring higher costs
for importing resources from elsewhere, or facing costs for emitting CO2 into the
global commons.

Our Ecological Creditor and Debtor Initiative seeks not to discourage trade but,
rather, to enable countries to see the benefit in reducing their resource dependence on
the one hand, and increasing or maintaining ecological reserves on the other.

Understanding this new distinction of wealth can help lead climate negotiations and
climate policy changes down a more productive path, empowering all countries,
whether ecological debtors or creditors, to implement aggressive sustainability
policies.

Frequently Asked Questions

General
What is the Ecological Footprint?

The Ecological Footprint is a resource accounting tool used widely as a management

and communication tool by governments, businesses, educational institutions and
NGOs to answer a specific resource question: How much of the biological capacity of
the planet is required by a given human activity or population?

What does the Ecological Footprint measure?

The Ecological Footprint measures the amount of biologically productive land and sea
area an individual, a region, all of humanity, or a human activity requires to produce
the resources it consumes and absorb the waste it generates, and compares this
measurement to how much land and sea area is available.

Biologically productive land and sea includes area that 1) supports human demand for
food, fiber, timber, energy and space for infrastructure and 2) absorbs the waste
products from the human economy. Biologically productive areas include cropland,
forest and fishing grounds, and do not include deserts, glaciers and the open ocean.

Current Ecological Footprint Standards (www.footprintstandards.org) use global

hectares as a measurement unit – which makes data and results globally comparable.

Which Footprint calculator should I use?

There are a number of online Ecological Footprint calculators in use today. When
evaluating other Ecological Footprint calculators, the most important consideration is
whether the calculator is actually measuring the Ecological Footprint and not just
using the term footprint as a proxy for general environmental impact. These
calculators may offer interesting insights but they are not aligned with the
international Ecological Footprint Standards, which were adopted in 2006 in order to
ensure that Footprint studies were both credible and consistent.

The Ecological Footprint as defined by the Ecological Footprint standards calculates

how much biologically productive area is required to produce the resources required
by the human population and to absorb humanity's waste. Approximately 90 percent
of all leading Ecological Footprint practitioners worldwide have joined Global
Footprint Network and have agreed to adhere to these standards and to use a common
set of data.

For globally comparable and credible Ecological Footprint calculator results, look for
transparent information on the methodology used, and check to see if the calculator
was created by a Global Footprint Network partner, as partnership requires
compliance with Ecological Footprint standards.

What is biocapacity?

Biocapacity is shorthand for biological capacity, which is the ability of an ecosystem

to produce useful biological materials and to absorb wastes generated by humans.

What is overshoot?

Overshoot, which in this context is shorthand for ecological overshoot, occurs when a
population’s demand on an ecosystem exceeds the capacity of that ecosystem to
regenerate the resources it consumes and to absorb its wastes.

The Ecological Footprint is often used to calculate global ecological overshoot, which
occurs when humanity’s demand on the biosphere exceeds the available biological
capacity of the planet. By definition, overshoot leads to a depletion of the planet’s life
supporting biological capital and/or to an accumulation of waste products.

How is an Ecological Footprint calculated?

Ecological Footprints can be calculated for individuals, groups of people (such as a

nation), and activities (such as manufacturing a product).

The Ecological Footprint of a person is calculated by considering all of the biological

materials consumed and all of the biological wastes generated by that person in a
given year. All these materials and wastes are then individually translated into an
equivalent number of global hectares.

To accomplish this, the amount of material consumed by that person (tonnes per year)
is divided by the yield of the specific land or sea area (annual tonnes per hectare) from
which it was harvested, or where its waste material was absorbed. The number of
hectares that result from this calculation are then converted to global hectares using
yield and equivalence factors. The sum of the global hectares needed to support the
resource consumption and waste generation of the person is that person's Ecological
Footprint.

The Ecological Footprint of a group of people, such as a city or a nation, is simply the
sum of the Ecological Footprint of all the residents of that city or nation. It is also
possible to construct an Ecological Footprint of production for a city or nation, which
instead sums the Ecological Footprint of all resources extracted and wastes generated
within the borders of the city or nation.

The Ecological Footprint of an activity, such as producing a good (an airplane) or

service (providing insurance) in the human economy, is calculated by summing the
Ecological Footprint of all of the material consumed and waste generated during that
activity. When calculating the Footprint of a business or an organization, the activities
to be included within the boundaries of that organization must be clearly defined.

What is a global hectare?

A global hectare is a common unit that encompasses the average productivity of all
the biologically productive land and sea area in the world in a given year. Biologically
productive areas include cropland, forest and fishing grounds, and do not include
deserts, glaciers and the open ocean.

Using a common unit, i.e., global hectares, allows for different types of land to be
compared using a common denominator. Equivalence factors are used to convert
physical hectares of different types of land, such as cropland and pasture, into the
common unit of global hectares.

Global hectares can also be converted into global acres.

What is the proper way to use the term Ecological Footprint?

The term Ecological Footprint, capitalized, is a proper name referring to a specific

research question: how much of the biological capacity of the planet is required by a
given human activity or population? Often, the word ‘footprint’ is used generically to
refer to human impact on the planet, or to a different research question. For example,
the term ‘carbon footprint’ often refers to the number of tonnes of carbon emitted by a
given person or business during a year, or to the tonnes of carbon emitted in the
manufacture and transport of a product. There is a carbon component to the
Ecological Footprint. It measures the amount of biological capacity, in global
hectares, demanded by human emissions of fossil carbon dioxide.

The term Ecological Footprint has been deliberately excluded from trademark to
encourage its widespread use. Global Footprint Network strives to maintain the value
of this term by encouraging our partners and others using the word footprint or
Ecological Footprint to apply the term consistently, using the definition found in the
Ecological Footprint Standards (www.footprintstandards.org). Global Footprint
Network encourages research answering different questions to be referred to as
something other than Ecological Footprint.
How does the Ecological Footprint relate to carrying capacity?

Carrying capacity is a technical term that refers to the maximum population of a

species that a given land or marine area can support. Many species have easily
defined and consistent consumption needs, making carrying capacity relatively easy
to define and calculate. For humans, however, carrying capacity estimates require
assumptions about future per-person resource consumption, standards of living and
“wants” (as distinct from “needs”), productivity of the biosphere, and advances in
technology. An area’s carrying capacity for humans is thus inherently speculative and
difficult to define.

Ecological Footprint accounts approach the carrying capacity question from a

different angle. Ecological Footprints are not speculative estimates about a potential
state, but rather are an accounting of the past. Instead of asking how many people
could be supported on the planet, the Ecological Footprint asks the question in reverse
and considers only present and past years. The Footprint asks how many planets were
necessary to support all of the people that lived on the planet in a given year, under
that year’s standard of living, biological production and technology. This is a
scientific research and accounting question that can be answered through the analysis
of documented, historical data sets.

Is the Ecological Footprint anti-trade, anti-technology, or anti-GDP?

The Footprint tracks current human demand on nature in terms of the area required to
supply the resources used and absorb the waste emitted in providing goods and
services. Trade is accounted for by allocating this demand to the country that
ultimately consumes these goods and services. This accounting reflects import and
export flows, but makes no judgment regarding the benefits, disadvantages or fairness
of trade. The Ecological Footprint is therefore neither pro- nor anti-trade.

As new technologies come on line that affect biocapacity and resource-efficiency,

their impact on resource supply and demand are reflected in biocapacity and Footprint
assessments. In other words, the Footprint and biocapacity results reported in any
given year are in part a function of the technology used in that year. This accounting
does not judge whether the use of a technology is positive or negative, but only shows
how the technology impacts resource flows. Footprint assessments are historical
rather than predictive, and make no judgment about the value of technologies that
may become available in the future.

The Footprint approach is neither pro- nor anti-GDP. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
is an economic indicator used to track the annual value added to an economy. For a
more comprehensive understanding of national trends, additional indicators are
required--unemployment statistics, longevity figures, or ecological asset measures, for
example. Global Footprint Network is working to have nations adopt the Ecological
Footprint as a complement to, rather than as a substitute for, the GDP, and has set a
specific goal in this regard--to have 10 nations adopt the Ecological Footprint by 2015
as a national indicator, in parallel with their use of the GDP.

What is the Water Footprint, and how is it related to the Ecological Footprint?
Though they are often compared and contrasted, Ecological Footprints and Water
Footprints are, as indicators, fundamentally incapable of being substituted. The
Ecological Footprint does not, and is not intended to measure freshwater flows.
Because this is nevertheless a vital renewable resource, in 2002, A.Y. Hoekstra
proposed that the Water Footprint be created as a sustainable water use indicator
measuring the total volume of freshwater directly or indirectly used by a population.

In essence, the Ecological Footprint measures the biological capacity a population

uses and the Water Footprint measures the freshwater a population uses. They each
provide a different piece of information in the sustainability puzzle. Instead of being
seen as competing metrics, they should be seen as two complementary indicators of
natural capital use in relation to human consumption.

For more information on the similarities and differences between the Ecological and
Water Footprints, please consult A.Y. Hoeksta's recent article Human appropriation of
natural capital: A comparison of ecological footprint and water footprint analysis.
Ecological footprints

Posted on November 13, 2006 - 9:42pm :: ISD-Philippines | Nature

By Michael Tan
November 08, 2006 | Philippine Daily Inquirer

TF! Editorial Comment: We have published a number of articles on the concept of

ecological footprints--that valuable idea that captures the impact of our lifestyles on
the planet. The article below brings the footprint into the Philippine context showing
its potential as an educational tool.

HOW MANY hectares of natural resources, on land and sea, are needed to support
you?

It’s an intriguing question, and a simple way of restating what an "ecological

footprint" is. Just to give you a rough idea, each person on earth today needs about 2.0
hectares of land and sea to support his or her lifestyle. The problem is that the planet’s
biocapacity, the total available resources, comes up to only about 1.8 hectares per
person, which means we are incurring an ecological deficit.

Those figures are global averages, representing wide differences among nations and,
within countries, among economic classes. I’ll get around to giving some of the
current estimates, including those for the Philippines, but let’s first examine this
ecological footprint in greater detail.

Lifestyles

The footprint (I’ll use this term from here on to save on space) is calculated by
looking at different aspects of our lifestyles: food, housing, mobility, energy. It looks
mainly at consumption, but also accounts for the resources needed to take care of the
wastes we generate. Each country has a calculated bioproductive resource base,
meaning land and sea resources that can be used.

The footprint becomes an educational tool for individuals and households by making
you conscious about how your choices determine its size. For starters, you might want
to try www.myfootprint.org, which has a simple questionnaire to help you determine
what your footprint is.

Taking the footprint quiz got me alternating between euphoria and depression. One
moment, I was quite proud that my largely vegetarian diet was minimal in terms of
ecological impact. On average, you need about 0.78 hectare to produce a ton of crop-
based food (cereals, grains, vegetables); on the other hand, you would need 2.1
hectares to produce a ton of animal-based food.

But that pride gave way to shame answering the questions on mobility. I do drive a
lot, often alone, and chalk up several thousand miles of air travel each year.

In terms of housing, I can claim some conservation measures, from using solar
heating to recycling and composting, but my footprint grew because I’m still largely
reliant on traditional sources of energy. Not that I haven’t tried, but even my solar
heating supplier couldn’t come up with a system to support even emergency energy
needs in the house.

National footprints
I nearly choked when I finally got my footprint calculation, which I’ll share with you
shortly but let’s look first at national footprints. The Global Footprint Network’s latest
calculations list the following five countries as having the largest footprints, expressed
in hectares per person: the United Arab Emirates (10.5), the United States (9.7),
Canada (7.5), Kuwait (7.3) and Australia (7). In contrast, the five smallest footprints
are those of Pakistan and Zambia, each with 0.6, Bangladesh and Cambodia each with
0.5, and Somalia with 0.2.

And the Philippines? We needed about one hectare per person. For my urbanite
readers, one hectare is 10,000 square meters.

The footprint concept should give us a new lens for looking at the environment. All
that land we see in rural areas isn’t really "empty" -- it is needed for food production,
for shelter, for erosion control, for landfills. Most importantly, it is land we share with
all kinds of animal and plant life that keep a precarious ecological balance. Talk with
fisherfolk and they’ll tell you about their frustration with going out to the sea an entire
night, casting nets over wide areas of ocean and yet hauling in tiny fish catches.

The footprint figures also alert us to the issue of equity. Note that each American
needs 10 times more biological resources than a Filipino would. Here’s another catch:
even within countries, the differences can be quite wide. I try very hard to be eco-
friendly with my lifestyle and yet the ecological footprint quiz I took, however rough,
estimated that I needed 14 hectares. Shame, shame!

I figured that if I need 14 hectares, then people in developed countries would need
easily more than 50 hectares each. It’s mind-boggling, especially when you think of
the lower end of the spectrum -- the people living on 0.2 hectare of resources.

Responsibility

It all boils down to a question of responsibility. There are many publications now, and
Internet sites, giving suggestions for individual decisions that will make a difference:
using bikes rather than cars, drying clothes out under the sun rather than the electric
dryer, even, gulp, foregoing that liquid plasma TV.

Some of the Internet resources talk more about collective action, for example, as a
guide for public policies. For example, one estimate places London’s footprint at 21
million hectares, yet the city itself has only 170,000 hectares of land.

Cities, not surprisingly, tend to rack up a larger ecological deficit and public policies
need to complement individual decisions. You can’t get people to bike more if you
don’t have more bike lanes.

The bottom line then is that cities thrive at the expense of the countryside and,
globally, rich countries in a sense live off poor countries. Just look at the recent
controversy over the Philippine-Japan free trade agreement, and the possibility that
we might end up being a dump for Japan’s wastes.

The footprint can become a powerful educational tool, raising public awareness about
the choices we need to make for more sustainable development. The footprint
calculations, which date back to the 1990s, have already shown some decreases in
footprints for countries that are more ecologically conscious, with the Western
European countries leading the way.

The footprint statistics also show us that development need not involve large
consumption like those of countries in North America and the Middle East. The
Netherlands, for example, has a footprint of only 4.4 hectares per person, half that of
the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

The Philippines shouldn’t be complacent about our small footprint. Even at 1.0
hectare per person, we’re still running a deficit of 0.4 hectare per person because of
our limited natural resources and large population.

We will need to figure out how we can develop in dollar and peso terms without
continuing to rack up an ecological deficit. In a sense, we’ve already gone into debt
with nature, and the interest costs will build up. We see these "green" costs with
landslides and other ecological disasters. Eventually, these could easily wipe out the
small gains we’re making in the economy. Worse, we may end up surviving only at
the cost of using up resources that were meant for the future. As one African proverb
goes, the environment was not given to us by our parents; rather it is lent to us by our
children.

Internet Source: http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?

article_id=31169

Ecological footprints

Posted on November 13, 2006 - 9:42pm :: ISD-Philippines | Nature

By Michael Tan
November 08, 2006 | Philippine Daily Inquirer

TF! Editorial Comment: We have published a number of articles on the concept of

ecological footprints--that valuable idea that captures the impact of our lifestyles on
the planet. The article below brings the footprint into the Philippine context showing
its potential as an educational tool.

HOW MANY hectares of natural resources, on land and sea, are needed to support
you?

It’s an intriguing question, and a simple way of restating what an "ecological

footprint" is. Just to give you a rough idea, each person on earth today needs about 2.0
hectares of land and sea to support his or her lifestyle. The problem is that the planet’s
biocapacity, the total available resources, comes up to only about 1.8 hectares per
person, which means we are incurring an ecological deficit.
Those figures are global averages, representing wide differences among nations and,
within countries, among economic classes. I’ll get around to giving some of the
current estimates, including those for the Philippines, but let’s first examine this
ecological footprint in greater detail.

Lifestyles

The footprint (I’ll use this term from here on to save on space) is calculated by
looking at different aspects of our lifestyles: food, housing, mobility, energy. It looks
mainly at consumption, but also accounts for the resources needed to take care of the
wastes we generate. Each country has a calculated bioproductive resource base,
meaning land and sea resources that can be used.

The footprint becomes an educational tool for individuals and households by making
you conscious about how your choices determine its size. For starters, you might want
to try www.myfootprint.org, which has a simple questionnaire to help you determine
what your footprint is.

Taking the footprint quiz got me alternating between euphoria and depression. One
moment, I was quite proud that my largely vegetarian diet was minimal in terms of
ecological impact. On average, you need about 0.78 hectare to produce a ton of crop-
based food (cereals, grains, vegetables); on the other hand, you would need 2.1
hectares to produce a ton of animal-based food.

But that pride gave way to shame answering the questions on mobility. I do drive a
lot, often alone, and chalk up several thousand miles of air travel each year.

In terms of housing, I can claim some conservation measures, from using solar
heating to recycling and composting, but my footprint grew because I’m still largely
reliant on traditional sources of energy. Not that I haven’t tried, but even my solar
heating supplier couldn’t come up with a system to support even emergency energy
needs in the house.

National footprints
I nearly choked when I finally got my footprint calculation, which I’ll share with you
shortly but let’s look first at national footprints. The Global Footprint Network’s latest
calculations list the following five countries as having the largest footprints, expressed
in hectares per person: the United Arab Emirates (10.5), the United States (9.7),
Canada (7.5), Kuwait (7.3) and Australia (7). In contrast, the five smallest footprints
are those of Pakistan and Zambia, each with 0.6, Bangladesh and Cambodia each with
0.5, and Somalia with 0.2.

And the Philippines? We needed about one hectare per person. For my urbanite
readers, one hectare is 10,000 square meters.

The footprint concept should give us a new lens for looking at the environment. All
that land we see in rural areas isn’t really "empty" -- it is needed for food production,
for shelter, for erosion control, for landfills. Most importantly, it is land we share with
all kinds of animal and plant life that keep a precarious ecological balance. Talk with
fisherfolk and they’ll tell you about their frustration with going out to the sea an entire
night, casting nets over wide areas of ocean and yet hauling in tiny fish catches.

The footprint figures also alert us to the issue of equity. Note that each American
needs 10 times more biological resources than a Filipino would. Here’s another catch:
even within countries, the differences can be quite wide. I try very hard to be eco-
friendly with my lifestyle and yet the ecological footprint quiz I took, however rough,
estimated that I needed 14 hectares. Shame, shame!

I figured that if I need 14 hectares, then people in developed countries would need
easily more than 50 hectares each. It’s mind-boggling, especially when you think of
the lower end of the spectrum -- the people living on 0.2 hectare of resources.

Responsibility

It all boils down to a question of responsibility. There are many publications now, and
Internet sites, giving suggestions for individual decisions that will make a difference:
using bikes rather than cars, drying clothes out under the sun rather than the electric
dryer, even, gulp, foregoing that liquid plasma TV.

Some of the Internet resources talk more about collective action, for example, as a
guide for public policies. For example, one estimate places London’s footprint at 21
million hectares, yet the city itself has only 170,000 hectares of land.

Cities, not surprisingly, tend to rack up a larger ecological deficit and public policies
need to complement individual decisions. You can’t get people to bike more if you
don’t have more bike lanes.

The bottom line then is that cities thrive at the expense of the countryside and,
globally, rich countries in a sense live off poor countries. Just look at the recent
controversy over the Philippine-Japan free trade agreement, and the possibility that
we might end up being a dump for Japan’s wastes.

The footprint can become a powerful educational tool, raising public awareness about
the choices we need to make for more sustainable development. The footprint
calculations, which date back to the 1990s, have already shown some decreases in
footprints for countries that are more ecologically conscious, with the Western
European countries leading the way.

The footprint statistics also show us that development need not involve large
consumption like those of countries in North America and the Middle East. The
Netherlands, for example, has a footprint of only 4.4 hectares per person, half that of
the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

The Philippines shouldn’t be complacent about our small footprint. Even at 1.0
hectare per person, we’re still running a deficit of 0.4 hectare per person because of
our limited natural resources and large population.

We will need to figure out how we can develop in dollar and peso terms without
continuing to rack up an ecological deficit. In a sense, we’ve already gone into debt
with nature, and the interest costs will build up. We see these "green" costs with
landslides and other ecological disasters. Eventually, these could easily wipe out the
small gains we’re making in the economy. Worse, we may end up surviving only at
the cost of using up resources that were meant for the future. As one African proverb
goes, the environment was not given to us by our parents; rather it is lent to us by our
children.

Internet Source: http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?

article_id=31169

Humanity's Ecological Footprint

Biodiversity suffers when the planet's biocapacity cannot

keep pace with human consumption and waste generation
The Ecological Footprint  tracks this in terms of the area of biologically productive
land and water needed to provide ecological resources and services – food, fibre, and
timber, land on which to build, and land to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) released by
burning fossil fuels.

The Earth’s biocapacity is the amount of biologically productive area – cropland,

pasture, forest, and fisheries – that is available to meet humanity’s needs.

Since the late 1980s, we have been in overshoot  - the Ecological Footprint has
exceeded the Earth’s biocapacity -  by about 25%.

Effectively, the Earth’s regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with

demand – people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn
waste back into resources.

Humanity is no longer living off nature’s interest, but drawing down its capital.

This growing pressure on ecosystems is causing habitat destruction or degradation

and permanent loss of productivity, threatening both biodiversity and human well-
being.
NB: Freshwater consumption is not included in the Ecological Footprint

For how long can this go on?

A moderate business-as-usual scenario, based on United Nations projections of slow,
steady growth of economies and populations, suggests that by 2050, humanity’s
demand on nature will be twice the biosphere’s productive capacity.

At this level of ecological deficit, exhaustion of ecological assets and large-scale

ecosystem collapse become increasingly likely.

What can be done?

Moving towards sustainability depends on significant action now.

Population size changes slowly, and human-made capital – homes, cars, roads,
factories, or power plants – can last for many decades.

This implies that policy and investment decisions made today will continue to
determine our resource demand throughout much of the 21st century.

As the Living Planet Index shows, human pressure is already threatening many of the
biosphere’s assets. Even moderate “business as usual” is likely to accelerate these
negative impacts. And given the slow response of many biological systems, there is
likely to be a considerable time lag before ecosystems benefit significantly from
people’s positive actions.

We share the Earth with 5–10 million species or more

By choosing how much of the planet’s biocapacity we appropriate, we determine how
much is left for their use.

To maintain biodiversity, it is essential that a part of the biosphere’s productive

capacity is reserved for the survival of other species, and that this share is split
between all biogeographic realms and major biomes.

To manage the transition to sustainability, we need measures that demonstrate

where we have been, where we are today, and how far we still have to go.

The Living Planet Index and the Ecological Footprint help to establish baselines, set
targets, and monitor achievements and failures.

Such vital information can stimulate the creativity and innovation required to address
humanity’s biggest challenge: how can we live well while sustaining the planet’s
other species and living within the capacity of one Earth?