The ecological footprint, developed in 1990 by Mathis

Wackernagel and William Rees at the University of British

Columbia, is one of the best measures available used to
quantify humanitys demand on the worlds resources.

An ecological footprint is a measure how fast we consume
resources and generate waste and expresses this as a
comparison to how fast nature can generate new resources and
absorb our waste.

This accounting system tracks how much land and water area a human
population uses to provide all it takes from nature. This includes the
areas for producing the resource it consumes, the space for
accommodating its buildings and roads, and the ecosystems for
absorbing its waste emissions such as carbon dioxide. These
calculations account for each years prevailing technology, as
productivity and technological efficiency change from year to year. The
accounting system also documents how much biologically productive
area is available to provide these services. Therefore, these accounts
are able to compare human demand against natures supply of
biocapacity.

Today, humanity as a whole uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets
to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This
means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to
regenerate what we use in a year

List of countries by size of their ecological footprint
Moderate United Nations scenarios suggest that if current
population and consumption trends continue, by the 2030s, we
will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us.
However, people living in North America generally have a much larger
ecological footprint than do those living in other parts of the world.
How much land area does it take to support your lifestyle? Take the
quiz found at the following link: http://www.earthday.org/footprint-
calculator to find out your ecological footprint, discover your biggest
areas of resource consumption, and learn what you can do to tread
more lightly (reduce the size of your footprint) on the Earth.



Not only can we look at our personal ecological footprint to gain some
perspective on our impact on the Earths resources, but we can also
look at the ecological footprint of the products we consume. In the first
unit of this course, you briefly examined a number of different
products when we spoke of the interconnectedness of our world.
Your task over the next couple of classes is to choose a consumer
product with at least five components and determine that products
ecological footprint. You should consider the following factors:
extraction of raw materials for product (what materials are used,
how are these materials sourced, where do they come from, etc.)
extraction of raw materials for packaging (what materials are used,
how are these materials sourced, where do they come from, etc.)
transportation costs (raw materials transported to production facilities,
finished goods transported to consumers, etc.)
pollution and waste (from extraction of raw materials, carbon dioxide
emissions, effluent from production facilities, etc.)
summary (how large of an impact does your product have on the
Earths resources facts, figures, statistics, totals, etc.)
Your finished assignment will be presented in a visually appealing
manner on a poster or oversized sheet of paper via gallery walk on
Monday, 26 May 2014.