Ecological Footprint

The Ecological Footprint Analysis Method

The ecological footprint accounts measure people's demand on nature. This demand includes both the resources that are consumed and the wastes produced. These resources are obtained from forests, cropland, fisheries, grazing land, and other ecosystems. The built environment compromises the land's ability to provide biological resources. Additionally, ecosystems absorb and assimilate the wastes produced as a result of human resource consumption. The ecological footprint adds up these ecosystem services in terms of the biologically productive areas needed to provide the services. In other words, ecological footprint analysis builds on “mass flow balance,” and each flow is translated into the ecologically productive areas necessary to support these flows.

The ability of ecosystems to supply humans with natural resources is limited by climate, technology, environmental management practices, and the availability of water and solar energy. This supply of ecosystem services and natural resources is called biocapacity. When a population's ecological footprint exceeds its biocapacity, ecological overshoot occurs.

The ecological footprints of nations can be calculated on an annual basis. Yearly figures are published by the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Global Footprint Network, along with methodological improvements that are used as reference points for applications by its partner organizations. These national accounts are presently the most scientifically scrutinized and well-documented national footprint assessments available. Adding up all nations’ footprints and biocapacities yields the global assessment. Overshoot measured on a global scale is an indicator of global unsustainability.

Global Footprint Network data show that humanity's resource demands and waste production began to exceed Planet Earth's ability to meet them around 1986 (Figure 1). By 2005, humanity exceeded the planet's ability to provide biological resources by 31%—thereby dipping into the [Page 826]natural capital stock. While the world average per capita biocapacity was 2.1 ha (hectares) per person, the world average per capita footprint was 2.7 ha per person. Ecological footprints vary significantly among nations. For example, the average footprint in Italy was 4.8 ha per person, against a domestic biocapacity of 1.2 ha per person, whereas the average footprint in Peru was 1.6 ha per person, against a domestic biocapacity of 4.0 ha per person (Table 1).

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