ECOLOGICAL
FOOTPRINT
Mohammad Khanbashi
Managing for Sustainability

In 2007, the Earth’s people used about 50% more natural resources than the planet could regenerate.1

A measure of the impact humans have on the environment is called an ecological footprint.
A country’s ecological footprint is the sum of all the cropland, grazing land, forest and fishing grounds required to produce the food, fiber and timber it consumes, to absorb the wastes emitted when it uses energy and to provide space for infrastructure.

WWF’s Living Planet Report 2010 found that in 2007 the global ecological footprint was 18 billion hectares.
This means that the Earth’s people needed 18 billion hectares of productive land in order to provide each and every person with the resources they required to support their lifestyle

1 . Living Planet Report, WWF, GFN and ZSL, 2010

and to absorb the wastes they produced. The bad news is that there were only 11.9 billion global hectares available.
In Australia, we’re consuming more than three times our fair share of the planet’s natural resources. If we continue these consumption patterns, we will face an ecological overshoot that will have far-reaching future consequences for people and nature.
Australians have one of the largest environmental footprints per capita in the world, requiring 6.8 global hectares per person. If all people consumed the Earth’s resources the way that we do in Australia, it would take the resources of more than three Earths to support us. Although advances in technology have helped people to produce things more efficiently, the benefits have been over-shadowed by ever-growing levels of consumption.
A person’s Ecological Footprint includes both personal and societal impacts. The Footprint associated with food, mobility, and goods is easier for you to directly influence through lifestyle choices (eating less meat, driving less, etc.). However a person’s Footprint also includes societal impacts or “services”, such as government assistance, roads and infrastructure, public services, and the military of the country that they live in. All citizens of the country are allocated their share of these societal impacts.
The Footprint of these societal impacts (i.e. the “services” category of your Footprint score) does not vary, and therefore in some nations it is not possible to reduce your Footprint to below one planet.
This is why, if we want to achieve sustainability, we need to focus on two things: both our own lifestyle as well as influencing our governments. Even with significant changes in individual behaviour, a large portion of a personal Footprint comes from the way national infrastructure is designed, goods are produced, and government and public services operate. In order to allow citizens to achieve a lifestyle that fits within one planet, governments need to dramatically improve the efficiency of the built environment and invest in renewable energy and smart land-use planning. (Network, 2014)

In 2000, Wackemagel et al developed an Ecological Footprint Calculator that allows individuals assess their personal and societal impacts on the environment. It is critical for people involved in built environment and construction industry to have a broad understanding of sustainability and elements that have to be carefully considered to minimise the negative impacts on the surroundings we live in.
In this report, I am going to use above calculator to evaluate my household ecological footprint located at 14 Waiben Crescent, Point Cook Vic 3030 and assess alternatives that can reduce the household Ecological Footprint.
Below table is illustrates the findings of this calculation in 6 different categories based on the current lifestyle in September 2014.

The Ecological Footprint per household member (presented as a land-use consumption matrix)

FOSSIL

ARABLE

PASTURE

FOREST

CATEGORIES

ENERGY
LD.

LAND

1.-FOOD

38131

126969

5960

0

2.-HOUSING

3747

0

0

3.-TRANSPORTATION

16657

0

4.-GOODS

1456

5.-SERVICES

BUILT-UP

expressed in average land with world average productivity (m²)

SEA

TOTAL

0

650

171711

0

939

0

4686

0

0

3212

0

19869

284

212

31

87

0

2070

60802

0

0

2466

6756

0

70024

6.-WASTE

1404

0

0

612

84

0

2101

TOTAL

122199

127253

6172

3109

11078

650

270461

LAND

In order to increase the accuracy of this calculation, the data was collected form the most recent utility bills, financial statements, insurance policies and supermarket receipts.
Findings:


270461 m² is equivalent of 27 global hectares which is almost four times bigger than the average Australian footprint.



17 hectares of land is required to produce food for our family.



Services and transportation are the next two categories that in order take 7 and 2 hectare of planet surface area. This is due to 2 full-time students living in this house hold. Full time education requires 2.6 hectare of and per person.

Improvement Strategies
One of the biggest problems in my household is the fact that we go shopping every week and fill up the fridge but then we keep buying take away as we don’t have the time to cook. This results in a 50% wastage of the vegetables, fruits, milk, juices and meat.
This also applies to the left-over food that goes to bin after few days.
I have now discovered that it will be more sustainable and cost effective if we sign up to one of these meal plan providers like Lite and Easy and have the food delivered to our door every week. This will help us have no food waste even though there will be some recycled wasted such as cardboard and aluminum from the food packaging, loose/gain weight, spend less time shopping, spend less money on food and eat healthier.
The Ecological Footprint related to supply of food surprisingly reduced to 1.1 hectares
(from the current 17 hectare) after above alterations. This will obviously be a temporary strategy until we finish our University and have more time to go shopping from local market and cook.
The other strategy to reduce our house hold Ecological Foot-print is to move our residence closer to CBD to minimize the transportation cost and negative impacts on the existing infrastructures. A 30 Kilometer drive two times a day in the rush hour does not contribute the traffic and also causes stress and anxiety on a personal level.
A four bedroom typical suburban brick veneer house with low energy efficiency rating and a big back yard that requires high level of maintenance is probably not the best choice of tenancy for students like us. A small two bedroom apartment or town house within the inner city similar to the new developments in Carlton which that are well designed in terms of sustainability, would be the most appropriate type of housing for us as it will contribute to reduce the housing footprint.

Changing the fuel consumption and type of housing in above calculator resulted in a significant change of footprint in these categories.
The Services category of above calculator consists of insurances, education, phone/ communication and medical. Living in the inners city obviously allows us to sell one of the cars and reduce our insurance and vehicle maintenance costs. As far as the education goes, there are not many option available to reduce the foot print until two students in this household complete their qualification. But just for the sake of this exercise, we assume that there is no student in the family and no money is spent on education.
Below table reflects all above changes. The new ecological footprint per person is only 3.5 and this was achieved by few small lifestyle changes.

The Ecological Footprint per household member (presented as a land-use consumption matrix)

ARABLE

1.-FOOD

FOSSIL
ENERGY
LD.
1551

SEA

TOTAL

5081

4646

0

0

0

11278

2.-HOUSING

3571

0

0

0

289

0

3861

3.TRANSPORTATION

3702

0

0

0

714

0

4415

4.-GOODS

1456

284

212

31

87

0

2070

5.-SERVICES

8452

0

0

1151

939

0

10542

6.-WASTE

2327

0

0

918

139

0

3384

TOTAL

21059

5365

4858

2100

2168

0

35551

CATEGORIES

PASTURE

FOREST

LAND

BUILT-UP

expressed in average land with world average productivity (m²)

LAND

The recovering capacity of planet is the limiting factor for human life on earth. All people from different continents and countries are entitled to have a rich life style as anyone else.
“Rich” refers to being able to use all natural resources available on our planet in a fair and reasonable manner.
This obviously is a little bit fat fetched as different countries don’t have same share of the natural resources. Below table shows how the natural resources are divided between different nations in comparison with their population.

(Mathis Wackernagel, 2006)

But now the question here is whether the Ecological Footprint shows what a “fair” and
“equitable” use of resources is.
I personally think that the Footprint can quantitatively describe the ecological resources used by an individual or a population, but it does not prescribe what they should be using.
Resource allocation is a policy issue, based on societal beliefs about what is or is not equitable. While Footprint accounting can determine the average bio-capacity that is available per person, it does not stipulate how this bio-capacity should be allocated among individuals or countries. However, it does provide a context for such discussions. (London,
2010)

References
London, Z. S. (2010). Living Planet Report 2010, Biodiversity, Biocapacity and development. 1196
Gland, Switzerland: WWF International.
Mathis Wackernagel, J. K. (2006, April). The Ecological Footprint of cities and regions. Environment and
Urbanization, 103-108.
Network, G. F. (2014, September). Footprint Basics. Retrieved from Global Foorprint Network: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_calculator_frequently_asked_ questions/