What is the Ecological Footprint ?
To our understanding the Footprint Methodology is a very powerful and useful methodology to visualize the resources needed for our activities. Whatever product we buy, services we use or type of transport we have chosen to go to work or elsewhere is associated with a certain amount of resources need to do so.
According to the official definition of the Global Footprint Network: “The Ecological Footprint has emerged as one of the world’s leading measures of human demand on nature. It allows us to calculate human pressure on the planet. Ecological Footprint Accounting thus addresses whether the planet is large enough to keep up with the demands of humanity…
…Biocapacity can then be compared with humanity’s demand on nature: our Ecological Footprint. The Ecological Footprint represents the productive area required to provide the renewable resources humanity is using and to absorb its waste. The productive area currently occupied by human infrastructure is also included in this calculation, since built-up land is not available for resource regeneration.” (globalfootprintnetwork.org)