The ecological footprint is a metric that measures the human demand on Earth’s ecosystems by evaluating both resource consumption and waste production.

This concept was developed in the 1990s by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees at the University of British Columbia. The ecological footprint quantifies the extent of biologically productive areas on Earth—both land and sea—required to produce the resources consumed by a population and to absorb the waste it generates, all based on current technological practices and resource management strategies. It is commonly expressed in global hectares per person, making it a useful indicator for assessing the sustainability of a population or activity.

Calculating the ecological footprint involves several key steps. First, the total resource consumption of an individual, city, country, or humanity as a whole is determined. This includes essential resources such as food, wood, fibers, and the land required for infrastructure. Next, the waste generated by these activities is assessed, which includes carbon dioxide emissions among other waste products. Both resource consumption and waste figures are then converted into a standardized unit known as global hectares, which represents a hectare of land with average global productivity.

Once the ecological footprint is calculated, it is compared to the Earth’s biocapacity. Biocapacity refers to the planet’s ability to produce useful biological materials and to absorb waste materials. When the ecological footprint exceeds the Earth’s biocapacity, it signifies that human consumption is outpacing the planet’s ability to regenerate resources, indicating unsustainable living practices.

The ecological footprint serves as a valuable tool for understanding our environmental impact and guiding us toward more sustainable decisions. However, it is essential to recognize that it is a simplified model and does not encompass all dimensions of human impact on the environment. For instance, it does not account for the extraction of non-renewable resources such as minerals and fossil fuels, nor does it address the effects of pollution on biodiversity. Despite these limitations, the ecological footprint offers a crucial snapshot of our current demands on Earth’s ecosystems.