Abstract
Ecological Footprint accounting quantifies the supply and demand of Earth’s biocapacity. The National Footprint Accounts (NFA) are the most widely used Ecological Footprint (EF) dataset, and provide results for most countries and the world from 1961 to 2014, based primarily on publicly available UN datasets. Here, we review the evolution of the NFA, describe and quantify the effects of improvements that have been implemented into the accounts since the 2012 edition, and review the latest global trends. Comparing results over six editions of NFAs, we find that time-series trends in world results remain stable, and that the world Ecological Footprint for the latest common year (2008) has increased six percent after four major accounting improvements and more than thirty minor improvements. The latest results from the NFA 2018 Edition for the year 2014 indicate that humanity’s Ecological Footprint is 1.7 Earths, and that global ecological overshoot continues to grow. While improved management practices and increased agricultural yields have assisted in a steady increase of Earth’s biocapacity since 1961, humanity’s Ecological Footprint continues to increase at a faster pace than global biocapacity, particularly in Asia, where the total and per capita Ecological Footprint are increasing faster than all other regions.
Highlights
In the past 30 years, the science of sustainability has emerged as a prominent field to address the challenges that arise from human–nature interactions [1,2,3,4,5]
Ecological Footprint accounting is driven by a simple, measurable question: How much of the biosphere’s regenerative capacity does human activity (“activities” can refer to the entire consumption metabolism of humanity, the consumption of a given population, a production process, or something as small and discreet as producing 1 kilogram of durum wheat spaghetti) demand [15,19]? Or : How much of the planet’s regenerative capacity does a defined activity require from nature? To answer these questions, the Ecological
National Footprint Accounts (NFA) calculate the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity of all countries and the world from 1961 to the latest data year, generally 4 years before the publication year based on the availability of input data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other key sources
Summary
Framing the Ecological Footprint as an accounting system rather than a normative indicator of progress allows the metric to be applied across broad contexts, which is a key element of sustainability-assessment frameworks [12]. This makes the Ecological Footprint relevant across a wide range of sectors and sociopolitical entities, each with their own unique cultures, natural systems, and methodological approaches to sustainability solutions. NFAs provide annual accounts of biocapacity and the Ecological Footprint for the world and all countries. We present the most recent national and global Ecological Footprint results, generated by the 2018 edition of the National Footprint Accounts [18]
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