10 Facts About Ecological footprint

Ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i e the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy.

At a global scale, Ecological footprint assessments show how big humanity's demand is compared to what Earth can renew.

Ecological footprint analysis is widely used around the world in support of sustainability assessments.

Simplest way to define an ecological footprint is the amount of environmental resources necessary to produce the goods and services that support an individual's particular lifestyle.

The Ecological footprint can be a useful tool to educate people about overconsumption, with the aim of altering personal behavior.

Since 2006, a first set of ecological footprint standards exist that detail both communication and calculation procedures.

Ecological footprint accounting method at the national level is described on the website of Global Footprint Network or in greater detail in academic papers, including Borucke et al.

Some researchers have misinterpreted ecological footprint accounting as a social theory or a policy guideline, while in reality it is merely a metric that adds up human demands that compete for the planet's regenerative capacity.

Not recognizing that the ecological footprint is merely a metric, they conclude that the footprint method does not lead to maximum social welfare.

Ecological footprint argues that calculating the ecological footprint for densely populated areas, such as a city or small country with a comparatively large population—e.