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Ecological footprint
Overview
The ecological footprint measures human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people and their economies. It tracks human demand on nature through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biologically productive area people use to satisfy their consumption to the biologically productive area available within a region, nation, or the world (biocapacity). Biocapacity is the productive area that can regenerate what people demand from nature. Therefore, the metric is a measure of human impact on the environment. As Ecological Footprint accounts measure to what extent human activities operate within the means of our planet, they are a central metric for sustainability.
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 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 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.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
This is the balance of the annual produce and consumption. If the exchangeable value of the annual produce, it has already been observed, exceeds that of the annual consumption, the capital of the society must annually increase in proportion to this excess. The society in this case lives within its revenue; and what is annually saved out of its revenue, is naturally added to its capital, and employed so as to…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
States what Ecological footprint is.
Productive expenditure they are accustomed to view as a gain; unproductive expenditure, however useful, as a sacrifice. Unproductive expenditure of what was destined to be expended productively, they always characterise as a squandering of resources, and call it profusion and prodigality. The productive expenditure of that which might, without encroaching upon capital, be expended unproductively, is called saving…
John Stuart Mill, Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy
States what Ecological footprint is.
To the first correspond what are called individual ends, to the second universal ends; the one gives rise to the judgment concerning the greater or less coherence of the action taken in itself, the other to that concerning its greater or less coherence in respect to the universal end, which transcends the individual.[69] Utilitarianism is according to Croce an attempt to reduce the Ethical to the Economic form…
John Dewey, Creative Intelligence
States what Ecological footprint is.
Philosophers who discussed Ecological footprint
Related ideas
- India
- Goods and services
- London
- Switzerland
- Scotland
- Water
- United States
- Autarky
- Natural capital
- Standard of living
- China
- Earth
- Energy
Place in the tradition
Part of Ecological economics.