The Ecological Footprint as a Tool in Environmental (...)

What is the ecological footprint?

It is a tool for determining if our lifestyles are sustainable. Categories of human consumption are translated into areas of productive land which is required to provide resources and assimilate waste products. The “footprint” is the total amount of land required to sustain one human or group of humans, say in a family or city, based on their use of energy, food, water, transport, building material and other consumables. It is a way of determining relative consumption for the purpose of educating people about their resource use. This approach shows that the most advanced countries consume and have a larger footprint on the earth than the rest of the planet.

By calculating the ‘environmental footprint’ the extent to which a person is utilising more or less than their fair sustainable share of the worlds resources can be shown. To ask people to fill in a form calculating their personal ecological footprint based on their everyday behavior can be considered as a kind of “shock therapy” because to find out that we need three or more planets to maintain a lifestyle like most of the citizens in the industrialized countries have is very impressing and leads many people to reflect more intensively about the necessity of changing their lifestyle and to promote a more sustainable development.

The Basque administration adopted the idea of a public campaign, which Hans Harms presented to them in the context of the presentation of the Charter of Human Responsibility. The result was a campaign in the mass-media and the publication and circulation to all households of a calendar explaining the concept of sustainable development with concrete examples and data and finally asking the citizens to calculate their ecological footprint filling in a questionnaire – and doing it again within year to find out, if they have changed their habits in the meantime.

On the Internet can be found numerous Web sites where you can find this type of questionnaires. One of them is, for example: http://www.earthday.net/footprint/i...

Another one, specially for children is: http://www.globalfootprints.org/iss...


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Innovative Projects, Experiences, and Ideas “To buy is a political act”: pathways towards a responsible consumption Nevertheless, there are alternatives: the experience of the cooperative of Mondragón Assuming Responsibilities in Daily Life: Responsible Consumption Building One’s Retirement around Human Responsibilities? Climate Warming and Our Common Responsibility: Becoming Informed So We Can Act Cross-cultural Listening and Dialog Our Common Responsibility to the Global Environment: The Europeans’ Ecological Debt The "Imperative of Responsibility" According to Hans Jonas The Ecological Footprint As a Tool for Awareness-raising on Individual and Collective Responsibility The Law and Cross-cultural Dynamics in Europe The Law as a Mirror of Cultures. For Another Globalization.	Home Activities Regional Activities Europe Western Europe Innovative Projects, Experiences, and Ideas Published on 7 September 2005 Translations available in: The Ecological Footprint as a Tool in Environmental Education by Hans HARMS Associated General Topics: Environment .
	What is the ecological footprint? It is a tool for determining if our lifestyles are sustainable. Categories of human consumption are translated into areas of productive land which is required to provide resources and assimilate waste products. The “footprint” is the total amount of land required to sustain one human or group of humans, say in a family or city, based on their use of energy, food, water, transport, building material and other consumables. It is a way of determining relative consumption for the purpose of educating people about their resource use. This approach shows that the most advanced countries consume and have a larger footprint on the earth than the rest of the planet. By calculating the ‘environmental footprint’ the extent to which a person is utilising more or less than their fair sustainable share of the worlds resources can be shown. To ask people to fill in a form calculating their personal ecological footprint based on their everyday behavior can be considered as a kind of “shock therapy” because to find out that we need three or more planets to maintain a lifestyle like most of the citizens in the industrialized countries have is very impressing and leads many people to reflect more intensively about the necessity of changing their lifestyle and to promote a more sustainable development. The Basque administration adopted the idea of a public campaign, which Hans Harms presented to them in the context of the presentation of the Charter of Human Responsibility. The result was a campaign in the mass-media and the publication and circulation to all households of a calendar explaining the concept of sustainable development with concrete examples and data and finally asking the citizens to calculate their ecological footprint filling in a questionnaire – and doing it again within year to find out, if they have changed their habits in the meantime. On the Internet can be found numerous Web sites where you can find this type of questionnaires. One of them is, for example: http://www.earthday.net/footprint/i... Another one, specially for children is: http://www.globalfootprints.org/iss...

The Ecological Footprint as a Tool in Environmental Education