Ecological footprint: what is it?

L’ecological footprint is an estimate of the land area needed to sustain itself: this tool is a measure of the pressure that man exerts on nature.

According to the Global Footprint Network, our way of life currently requires 1.7 planets for our resource consumption to be compensated globally. Each year, this network calculates the “overshoot day”, the point at which humanity has consumed the resources that the Earth can compensate for in a year. In 2017, the overshoot day was August 2.

Ecological footprint and lifestyle

The ecological footprint of an individual depends on his way of life. On average, it is estimated that a European needs the equivalent of ten soccer fields (approximately 5 hectares) to live on, whereas an American needs twice as much. An average person on Earth would only need five football pitches.

To modify his ecological footprint, an individual can act on the following factors:

• the type of power supply (omnivorous, vegetarian, vegan…) and the origin of the food (local…),
• the quantity of waste issued,
• the mode of transportation (soft mode, cartrain, plane…) and the distances covered,
• the heating method, the origin of the electricity used, the energy savings…