Ecological Footprint

What is it? A measure of how much productive land (in global hectares) is required to produce the goods and services and dispose of the waste necessary to support a particular lifestyle. Put simply, the ecological footprint compares how many resources we use with how many resources we have.

Key Terms Biocapacity: The earth’s capacity to produce materials and absorb waster generated by humans. (Think about ‘The Story of Stuff’. Overshoot: The point where societies demand is too great for the earth’s ability to replenish resources. Consumerism: Societies emphasis and tendency to consume goods.

What do we measure?

Victoria’s Ecological footprint

How is societies footprint tracking? Globally, our society is using resources faster than they can be replenished. Example: Trees are being cut down at a rate faster than they can be replenished. How is societies footprint tracking?

How do we measure? Humans can take a short questionnaire on they lifestyle. The questionnaire includes transport habits, food consumption, household energy use and ownership of goods. The questionnaire determines how many global hectares would be required to support their consumption. 1 global hectare = roughly one soccer field worth of biologically productive space.

How many earths? The questionnaire also determines how many Earths would be required to support life if everyone lived the same lifestyle as you.

global consumption levels The earth can support 1.8 global hectares per person. The current average footprint is 2.7 global hectares. The Australian average is 6.7 global hectares If everyone in the world lived like the average Australian, we would require 3.7 Earths worth of resources.

Global Ecological Footprint

What can be done? Much can be done in order to assist in lowering our ecological footprint. Learning activity… Household video