Ecological footprint

A measure of the biologically productive area needed to supply a population’s resource use and absorb its waste, usually expressed in global hectares.

Biocapacity: The capacity of ecosystems to regenerate biological resources and absorb wastes under prevailing management. Comparing footprint with biocapacity shows whether demand exceeds the ecosystems’ regenerative supply.
William Rees: A Canadian ecological economist who developed the ecological footprint concept with Mathis Wackernagel. Rees introduced the concept as a way to assess the land demands of urban populations.
Ecological footprint by country: A comparison of countries’ resource demand and waste absorption expressed as biologically productive area. National comparisons reveal how consumption levels and population sizes shape total footprint.
Life-cycle assessment: A method for assessing environmental impacts across the stages of a product or service’s life. Unlike footprint accounting, life-cycle assessment can report multiple impact categories rather than area demand.
Global hectare: A productivity-weighted unit representing one hectare of biologically productive area at world-average productivity. Footprint accounts use this unit to compare land types with different biological productivity.
Mathis Wackernagel: A sustainability researcher who co-developed ecological footprint analysis with William Rees. Wackernagel helped formalize and popularize the footprint method.
Earth Overshoot Day: An annual date marking when humanity’s estimated resource demand exceeds Earth’s yearly regenerative capacity. Its date is calculated from humanity’s ecological footprint relative to global biocapacity.
Environmental footprint: A broad family of measures estimating environmental pressures associated with activities, products, or populations. Ecological footprint is one specific area-based measure within a wider family of footprint metrics.
Carbon footprint: The greenhouse-gas emissions caused directly and indirectly by an activity, organization, product, or population. The carbon component converts emissions into the hypothetical forest area needed to absorb them.
Our Ecological Footprint: A 1996 book by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees presenting ecological footprint analysis. The book set out the method’s foundational account of human demand on nature.

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