Last update:

23rd October 2007

Quick links:

Local authority ecological footprint data

What is an eco-footprint?

Key findings of the SW eco-footprint

Other eco-footprints in the South West

Eco-footprint calculator

European eco-footprint

Global eco-footprint

Useful websites:

Stepping Forward

Best Foot Forward

WWF

WWF Living Planet report

South West Eco-Footprint

What's new on this page...

• Ecological footprint of British city residents
• Eco-footprints according to South West local authorities
• WWF Eco-Footprint & Eco-Budget for the South West
• Eco-footprint data for local authorities

What is an eco-footprint?

Simply put, an eco-footprint is an estimate of the land and sea area (expressed in global hectares) needed to provide all the energy, water, materials, goods and services that we consume. The key question is whether this load exceeds what nature can sustainably support, as there is only a finite amount of natural resources.

A key message arising out of the region's eco-footprint is that we must learn to live within nature's capacity, as well as share the available resources with other species.

An eco-footprint is a 'snapshot' estimate of demand usually based on data from a single year (in the South West's case: 2001). Both available supply (the biocapacity) and the eco-efficiency of the economy can change over time which is why it is not possible to forecast or 'backcast' footprints from current data. It is, however, possible to make assumptions about future consumption and create informative (although speculative, scenarios.

South West eco-footprint & eco-budget

The Ecological Footprint shows that if everyone on the planet consumed natural resources and energy like the average South West resident we would need three planets to support us. We are clearly living beyond environmental limits.

The South West eco-footprint is 5.24 global hectares (gha), below the UK average of 5.36 gha, but well-above the world average of 2.2 gha and our 'fairshare' of 1.8 gha.

Home and energy is responsible for 22% of our eco-footprint, food 20% and travel 17%, consumables 11% and services 7%. Only the footprint for travel and services was above the national average.

A key objective of sustainable development is to move from a three planet lifestyle to what WWF calls 'One Planet Living', which will require decoupling economic growth from an increasing eco-footprint.

Ecological Budget UK

Ecological Budget UK provides a much needed evidence base to better understand the important issues of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP). It provides a statistical and scientific basis for SCP strategies in the UK at national and regional levels. It shows the total global impact of UK consumption, not only by accounting for direct resource flows and emissions within the UK, but also by including the manufacture of imported products and materials.

Ecological Budget UK’s three headline indicators – CO2 emissions, material flow analysis, and the Ecological Footprint can be used together or side-by-side for different purposes.

Material flow

• The total material input is 15.2 tonnes per person (also described as tonnes/capita or t/cap).
• Of this total, 26% comes from imports.
• The average household directly purchases 2.5 tonnes a year and throws away a tonne of waste each year.
• 35% of all material goes to capital stocks (new buildings, roads and other infrastructure).
• 21% of all material is exported.
• 37% of all material ultimately ends up as waste.

Ecological Footprint

• The total Ecological Footprint per person in the UK is 5.4 global hectares (an area equivalent to a normal hectare but adjusted for average global productivity).
• The highest footprint of all devolved administrations and English regions is the South East at 6.3 global hectares
  per person.
• The lowest footprint of all devolved administrations and English regions is Wales at 5.2 global hectares per person.
• If the footprint was to be distributed evenly among the global population, the UK is currently overshooting that by a factor of three. In other words, if everyone lived like we do in the UK, we would need three planets to support our current lifestyles.

CO2 emissions

• The total carbon emissions from UK production is 10.8 t/cap.
• The total carbon emissions from UK consumption is 11.9 t/cap.
• The total carbon emissions in imports for consumption is between 10% and 30% of the total UK emissions.
• In terms of carbon emissions, the most resource intensive sectors are the cement industry followed by electricity generation.
• The most indirectly resource intensive sector is banking and finance.
• The consumption type with the highest impact is domestic energy consumption followed by car use.
• The consumption type with highest impact per £ spent is electricity generation.

This baseline report concludes that it would require three planets to support the world’s consumption if everyone used as many of the Earth’s available resources (“bio-capacity”) as the average UK resident. This level of resource use is unsustainable, and demonstrates the need for a ‘One Planet Economy’ – an economic system of production and consumption which respects environmental limits while being financially and socially sustainable. A One Planet Economy will require a 75% reduction in resource flows and the Ecological Footprint. This is a hugely challenging target.

Ecological Footprint for local authorities

Free Ecological Footprint reports for all local authorities are available from the Resources & Energy Analysis Programme (REAP).

This website provides you with data on your region or local authority, access to reports on REAP and information on how decision-makers are using REAP to understand the effectiveness of policy decisions to achieve sustainability. A discussion forum is also available for you to exchange ideas with other policy makers at the local, regional and national level.

This data, summarised in the map below, shows that ecological footprints vary across the region. This highest eco-footprints tended to be found in the eastern parts of the region, such as East Dorset, Cheltenham, Cotswold, Kennet , Purbeck and Salisbury. However, the Isles of Scilly, West Somerset, East Devon and North Somerset were also high. East Dorset had the highest eco-footprint with 5.47 gha/cap, whilst the lowest was in Plymouth with 5 gha/cap. Full results can be downloaded in an excel spreedsheet here.

Eco-footprints according to South West local authority

Ecological footprint of British city residents

The WWF Ecological Footprint of British City Residents report ranks the 60 British cities by the ecological footprint of their average resident. It highlights the ways in which we are living unsustainably as well as opportunities for change.

Our over-consumption of resources is driving the global decrease in species populations. The more we consume, the greater the demand on the environment and the higher the level of species loss.

The first step in tackling this issue is for people to find out their ecological footprint and take action to reduce it. Start your journey, take the WWF eco-challenge and find out the size of your ecological footprint.

The WWF-commissioned report was written by environmental consultancy, Carbon Plan based on data provided by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

The main factors affecting an individual's ecological footprint are: how people build and live in their houses, what transport a person uses and how far they travel, what food people buy and how it is grown and how consumer goods are manufactured.

National average

South West results

All cities in the South West had consumed under the average city footprint of 3.01 planets. In summary:

• Plymouth had the lowest housing footprint and Wells the highest
• Plymouth had the lowest transport footprint whilst Bath and Wells had the highest
• Plymouth had the lowest food footpring and Truro the highest
• Truro uses the least of its footprint on consumer items whilst Bath and Wells uses the highest
• All cities in the South West had a high private services footprint, with the exception of Truro.

(national rank in brackets)

All full list of city results is available here

South West Ecological Footprint 2005

Stepping Forward - the South West Ecological Footprint (April 2005) was the first study of the region's energy and material consumption. It aims to:

• Disseminate findings about the region's environmental impact to a broad audience and hopes to stimulate well-informed debate
• Facilitate development of evidence-based policies
• Support current strategies and illuminate the actions required to achieve a more sustainable future.

Key findings

According to Stepping Forward, in 2001 the South West:

• Consumed over 48 million tonnes of materials and products
• Generated 20 million tonnes of waste
• Generated nearly 27 million tonnes of CO2, 45% of which came from road transport
• Used 93,760 GWh of energy and more than 3 million megalitres of water
• Residents travelled a total of 56 billion kilometres, 82% by car and 5% by air
• Tourists travelled 9.8 billion kilometres to and from the region
• The eco-efficiency of the South West's economy was 58%: for every tonne of product consumed by the economy nearly half becomes waste

The ecological footprint of a South West resident was 5.56 global hectares. If everyone on the planet lived like the average South West resident, we would need two extra earths.

Other eco-footprint studies in the South West

Eco-footprints have also been completed or started in Plymouth, Bath and Bristol. Short summaries of these reports are available from Stepping Forward

Find out your own ecological footprint

Are you an average South West resident?

Find out your personal impact by using a simple online ecological footprint calculator estimate your own ecological footprint

European footprint

In the run up to the G8 meeting 6th - 8th July 2005 in Scotland, the World Wildlife Fund has published a new report, Europe 2005 - The Ecological Footprint.

This report reveals that the 25 members of the European Union have accumulated an environmental deficit of 220% of their biological capacity. Today, the footprint of the EU-25 is 2.2 times as large as its own biological capacity. This means that at its current rate of consumption just over twice its own land and sea space would be required to support Europe’s resource demands.

This means that Europeans now rely on the resources of the rest of the world to make up their increasing ecological deficit.

Europe’s demand on the biosphere plays a significant part in this. With merely 7% of the world population, the European Union uses 17% of the biosphere’s regenerative capacity.

As a result of increasing human demand and declining ecological wealth, Europe is losing room to manoeuvre. It increasingly exports its insatiable demands for natural resources to poorer countries. To reduce this constriction and to eventually reverse these trends, we need sustainable development – which WWF defines as improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of our supporting ecosystems.

Global footprint

The Living Planet Report is the fifth in a series of Living Planet reports published by the World Widlife Fund (WWF). It explores the impact of man on the earth's finite resources and helps to measure the world's progress towards sustainable development and the conservation of biodiversity. It is based on two indicators:

1. The Living Planet Index (LPI) - measuring the overall trends in populations of wild species around the world and examining the planet's natural wealth of vertebrate species over time.
2. Ecological Footprint - a measure of environmental sustainability, weighing humanity's past and present demand on the earth's renewable natural resources.

These two indicators are used to give vital information about the state of the world's ecosystems and the human pressures affecting them. Results from the 2004 reveal that the news is not good and between 1970 - 2000

The LPI declined by about 40%, representing a critical blow to the vitality and resilience of the world's natural systems.

• The terrestrial species index declined by about 30% in 555 species of mammals, birds and reptiles
• The freshwater species index declined by approximately 50% in 323 vertebrate species found in rivers, lakes and wetland ecosystems
• The marine species index declined by about 30% in 267 species of mammals, birds, reptiles and fish occuring in the world's ocean and coastal ecosystems.

Humanity's ecological-footprint grew to exceed the earth's carrying capacity by 20%.

The global eco-footprint was 13.5 billion global hectares in 2001, or 2.2 global hectares per person (a global hectare is a hectare whose biological productivity equals the global average).

The biological capacity of the earth is approximately 11.3 billion global hectares - a quarter of the earth's surface. The productive area of the biosphere translates into an average of 1.8 global hectares per person.

The global ecological footprint changes with population size, average consumption per person and resource efficiency. The earth's biocapacity changes with the amount of biologically productive area and its average productivity.

• In 2001, humanity's eco-footprint exceeded global biocapacity by 0.4 global hectares per person (21%). This global overshoot began in the 1980s and have been growing ever since. It has grown by about 160% from 1961 to 2001, exceeding population growth (which doubled).
• The ecological footprint is highest in the United Arab Emerates (almost 10 global hectares per person), closely followed by the USA and Kuwait.
• The ecological footprint is lowest in Afghanistan (under 0.5 global hectares per person), followed by Somalia and Haiti
• The UK ranked 15th (around 5.5 global hectares per person).

Footprints are available for:

• Food, fibre and timber
• Energy
• Water withdrawals

The Living Planet report 2004 is available to download.

Consuming the planet - October 9th 2006 was World Overshoot Day

Rising consumption of natural resources means that humans began "eating the planet" on 9 October, a study by the US-based think-tank Global Footprint Network suggests.

October 9th symbolised the day of the year when people's demands exceeded the Earth's ability to supply resources and absorb the demands placed upon it.

This year's global ecological debt day meant that it would take the Earth 15 months to regenerate what was consumed this year.

Each year Global Footprint Network calculates humanity’s Ecological Footprint (its demand on cropland, pasture, forests and fisheries) and compares it with global biocapacity (the ability of these ecosystems to generate resources and absorb wastes). Ecological Footprint accounting can be used to determine the exact date we, as a global community, begin running our annual ecological deficit.

The world first "ecological debt day" fell on 19 December 1987, but economic growth had seen it fall earlier each year. By 1995 it had jumped back a month to 21 November.

The New Economics Foundation (Nef), a UK think-tank that helped compile the report, had published a study that said Britain's "ecological debt day" in 2006 fell on 16 April.

Overshoot has been called ‘the biggest issue you’ve never heard of.’ Yet despite its lack of publicity, its causes and effects are as simple as they are significant.In any given year, if trees are cut down faster than they grow back, then forests become smaller than the year before. If more fish are caught each year than spawn, there will be fewer fish in the sea. The consequences of our accumulating ecological debt also include global climate change, species extinction, insecure energy supplies, water shortages, and crop failure.

As humanity’s consumption of resources increases, World Overshoot Day creeps earlier on the calendar.

Today, with Overshoot Day on October 9, humanity's Ecological Footprint is almost thirty per cent larger than the planet’s biocapacity this year. In other words, it now takes more than one year and three months for the Earth to regenerate what we use in a single year.