What is Ecological Footprint
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Ecological Footprint is a tool that measures our natural resource consumption and our global environmental impact. Ecological Footprint measures the total quantity of land and sea area required to produce the food, fibre and minerals we consume, absorb the waste we produce (including CO2 emissions), and provide the space for our infrastructure. As we consume resources and ecological services from all over the world, so our footprint is a sum of those areas (measured in ‘global hectares), wherever they are on the planet. Ecological Footprint allows us to assess whether our consumption of natural resources is within the planet’s overall environmental limits.
Ecological Footprint also allows us to track the global impact of our consumption patterns – that is, to what extent we are consuming resources both from within, and beyond, our local, regional or national boundaries. In this way, Ecological Footprint allows us to assess whether our consumption of natural resources is within the planet’s overall environmental limits – or how successful we are at shifting from a ‘three planet lifestyle’ to ‘One Planet Living’. With England home to over 84 per cent of the UK’s population and accounting for more than 85 per cent of its consumption, WWF believes that the English Regions, and the local authorities within them, have a crucial role to play in championing the vision of One Planet Living and are effectively placed to use Ecological Footprint.