What is the ecological footprint, and how is it calculated?

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on Earth's ecosystems, calculated by considering resource consumption and waste production.

The ecological footprint is a concept developed by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees at the University of British Columbia in the 1990s. It is a measure of how much of the Earth's biologically productive areas (including land and sea) are required to produce the resources a human population consumes and to absorb the waste it generates, using prevailing technology and resource management. This measure is often used to assess the sustainability of a population or activity and is typically expressed in global hectares per person.

The calculation of the ecological footprint involves several steps. Firstly, the consumption of resources by a person, city, country, or humanity as a whole is calculated. This includes resources such as food, wood, fibres, and space for infrastructure. Secondly, the waste produced by this entity is calculated, including carbon dioxide emissions. These two figures are then converted into a common unit, global hectares, which represents a hectare of land with world-average productivity.

The ecological footprint is then compared to the Earth's biocapacity, which is the capacity of the planet's ecosystems to produce useful biological materials and to absorb waste materials. If the ecological footprint exceeds the Earth's biocapacity, this indicates that we are using resources faster than they can be regenerated and are therefore living unsustainably.

The ecological footprint is a useful tool for understanding our impact on the planet and for guiding decisions towards sustainability. However, it is important to note that it is a simplified model and does not account for all aspects of human impact on the environment. For example, it does not consider the extraction of non-renewable resources such as minerals and fossil fuels, nor does it account for the impact of pollution on biodiversity. Despite these limitations, the ecological footprint provides a valuable snapshot of our current demands on the Earth's ecosystems.