Ecological Footprint 2019
60% of the world's population lives unsustainably.
The global ecological footprint is calculated by measuring the amount of biologically productive land and sea area that is required to sustain a way of life. Land and sea have to produce the consumed resources and absorb the generated waste of a population. The footprints unit is given in “earths required” which would be needed, if everybody adopted this way of life. If we all lived like Nicaraguans, one earth would suffice, as Qataris we’d burn through 8.7 earths. Not every Qatari lives like a Sheik, but an oil producing country with low environmental standards is an unhealthy combination.
A small ecological footprint on the other hand is often coupled with underdevelopment. Form 182 only 60 countries have a way of life the earth could sustain. Almost all these sustainable countries belong to the low or lower-middle income group, none of them is in the high income realm. And only four of the 60 countries have a high human development. They are: Egypt, Jordan, Moldova, and Tunisia. This is 2.6% of the world’s population, that lives a sustainable and good life according to the Human Development Index (HDI).
Roughly 60% of the world population lives in countries with an ecological deficit. That is to say that a population’s ecological footprint exceeds the region’s biocapacity.
11 regions or countries had no HDI data available in 2023:
| Country | Number of Earths required |
|---|---|
| Côte d’Ivoire | 0.6 |
| Somalia | 0.6 |
| Zimbabwe | 0.7 |
| North Korea | 0.8 |
| Zambia | 0.8 |
| French Guiana | 1.0 |
| Martinique | 2.3 |
| Guadeloupe | 2.3 |
| Réunion | 2.3 |
| French Polynesia | 2.5 |
| Bermuda | NaN |
Human Development Index
The HDI, was introduced by the UN in 1990 to provide a more well-rounded evaluation of human development than mere economic statistics did. It measures health, education, and standard of living. Health is assessed by life expectancy at birth. Education by the average number of years of school completed by adults as well as the number of years of school expected to be completed by children. Standard of living is assessed by the gross national income (GNI) per capita. The HDI can provide insights that a single measure cannot. If a country with a high GNI has a lower life expectancy and lower educational attainment than a country with a lower GNI, there is reason to suspect that human well-being higher income country is not sufficiently prioritized.
Ecological Footprint
The ecological footprint measures how much nature we use compared to how much we have. This accounting approach tracks how much biologically productive land and water area an individual, population or activity uses to produce all the resources it consumes, to house all its infrastructure, and to absorb its waste given prevailing technology and resource management practices. Global Footprint Network calculates the ecological footprint of countries on an annual basis and presents the results on an open data platform.
When a population’s ecological footprint exceeds the biocapacity of its territory, it runs a biocapacity deficit. This deficit is balanced either through the use of biocapacity from elsewhere, or local overuse, called ‘ecological overshoot’. At the global level, deficit and overshoot are identical since there is no interplanetary trade allowing for biocapacity use from elsewhere.
Ecological footprint accounting can be applied at all scales, from the global down to the product level. Overshoot measured at the global scale is an indicator of unsustainability.