Cambers PDF
Cambers PDF
Cambers PDF
‘This book sets out the most important compass that society can have
if we are to navigate the future’
Ed Mayo,
Executive Director,
New Economics Foundation
‘Sharing Nature’s Interest is an essential book for the citizen who wants
to live in such a way that his or her grandchildren will inherit a planet
in reasonably good order. It combines important advice for individual
action backed by a dazzling display of science’
Tim Beaumont, Lord Beaumont of Whitley,
Green Party Representative in the UK House of Lords
Sharing Nature’s Interest
Ecological Footprints as an
Indicator of Sustainability
Nicky Chambers
Craig Simmons
Mathis Wackernagel
First published by Earthscan in the UK and USA in 2000
For a full list of publications please contact:
Earthscan
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Notices
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds,
or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they
should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including
parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.
1 Redefining progress 1
2 Indicating progress 15
3 Footprinting foundations 35
4 Footprinting fundamentals 59
5 From activities to impacts 79
6 Twenty questions about ecological footprinting 107
7 Global and national footprints 117
8 Regional footprinting 133
9 Assessing the impact of organizations and services 145
10 Footprinting for product assessment 153
11 Footprinting lifestyles – how big is your ecological garden? 163
12 Next steps 171
FIGURES
1.1 Many aspects, though not all, of human quality of life are a
function of consumption 5
1.2 Environment, Society and Economy 7
1.3 Achieving quality of life within the means of nature 8
1.4 GPI versus GDP in the US (1950–1999) 11
2.1 Indicators must move from being librarians to plumbers 19
2.2 The water butt analogy 30
3.1 Global land resources 36
3.2 Consumption: the warped logic and a bad joke 48
3.3 Historical estimates of global carrying capacity 51
4.1 The globalization of trade 61
4.2 Broad land categories used in ecological footprint analysis 63
4.3 Land and sea availability per capita projected to 2050 64
5.1 Contribution to the fuel costs of a standard white loaf 88
5.2 Total world materials production (1963–1995) 91
5.3 Water withdrawals by sector (1987) 98
6.1 The real challenge is the play-off between the ‘wants’ of
society (quality of life goals) and environmental limits 112
7.1 Global and national footprints 117
7.2 Ranking of each nation by per capita footprint 120
7.3 Ecological capacity and competitiveness 125
8.1 Regional footprinting 133
8.2 Footprint of a selection of UK cities 137
9.1 Assessing the impact of organizations and services 145
9.2 Screen-shot of CampusCalc 151
10.1 Footprinting for product assessment 153
10.2 Ecological footprint values for three nappy systems 157
11.1 Footprinting lifestyles 163
11.2 Screen-shot from EcoCal 165
11.3 Household footprints 167
11.4 Ecological footprint by type of house 168
TABLES
4.1 Average per capita earthshare based on populations of
6 and 9.5 billion 66
4.2 Annual consumption of biotic resources: Costa Rica (1995) 70
viii Sharing Nature’s Interest
BOXES
1.1 Some further attempts at defining sustainable development 2
1.2 Six S’s to save the world! 3
1.3 IPAT example – a tale of two cities 6
1.4 Gaviotas – a village to reinvent the world 9
1.5 Genuine progress indicator (GPI) 12
2.1 What makes a good indicator? 16
2.2 The Natural Step 20
2.3 Environmental space 22
2.4 Systems models 23
2.5 Environmental impact assessment and critical loads 25
2.6 Corporate environmental performance evaluation 26
2.7 Life cycle analysis 27
2.8 Material accounts: MIPS and regional metabolisms 28
2.9 Energy and ‘eMergy’ analysis 29
3.1 Rural poverty 40
3.2 Forests as carbon sinks 43
3.3 Status of the tiger 45
3.4 Overshoot: sustainability’s big taboo 47
3.5 The Easter Island story 49
3.6 How many people can the earth support? A critical review 50
4.1 Estimating land productivities 62
4.2 Is 12 per cent enough for securing biodiversity? 65
5.1 Health warning: global generalizations 80
5.2 Derivation example – ‘footprints in the wind’ 81
5.3 Get your cheap flights here 84
5.4 Derivation example – ‘tyre treads’ 85
5.5 Derivation example – ‘the slippery banana footprint’ 89
5.6 Derivation example – ‘The Footprint News’ 94
5.7 Derivation example (Method 1) – ‘walking on water’ 98
5.8 Derivation example (Method 2) – the ‘shadow footprint’
of water 99
5.9 Health warning – the double-counting demon 101
7.1 Distribution of footprints and income worldwide 117
7.2 Barbados – horrors and hopes 126
7.3 The New Economics foundation’s green league 127
7.4 Purchasing power and footprint 128
8.1 The Hague – green city by the sea 136
9.1 Greening education: an ecological footprint of Ryde School 150
10.1 Cola travels 158
10.2 The sustainable process index 160
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Acronyms and Abbreviations
UN United Nations
UNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
WBCSD World Business Council on Sustainable Development
WEF World Economic Forum
WWF World Wide Fund For Nature
WRI World Resources Institute
Preface
We hope that through the pages of this book, and the accompany-
ing website, we can help to focus the broad debate on environmental
sustainability and, most importantly, encourage widespread action.
Nicky Chambers
Craig Simmons
Oxford, England
August 2000
has added weight to the over 4000 websites that discuss the ecological
footprint, and to a plethora of government documents and business
advertising that refer to the footprint idea. In the early stages, much of
my motivation came from demonstrating why the dominant system
was socially and ecologically devastating, with no conviction that
sustainability could actually be reached. Now, the growing interest in
and enthusiasm toward making satisfying lives possible for everyone,
whilst living within our planet’s ecological means, has taught me that
sustainability can actually be won. More and more evidence strength-
ens my sense that the tide may be turning. Not yet quickly enough. But
we know sustainability is possible and achievable. And the strengthen-
ing of this possibility is the driver behind today’s footprint work.
That’s why I am particularly grateful to Nicky and Craig since they
operate from the conviction that living in a sustainable world is a valid
option. I am proud to count them among my colleagues and thank
them warmly for this wonderful collaboration.
Mathis Wackernagel
Oakland, California
August 2000
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the staff at Best Foot Forward,
Redefining Progress and The Centre for Sustainability Studies for their
support during the gestation of this book. In particular we would like
to single out Kevin Lewis and P V Vernon in Oxford, Diana Deumling
in Oakland, and Alejandro Callejas Linares, María Antonieta Vásquez
Sánchez and Ina Susana López Falfán in Xalapa, Mexico, for their
invaluable contributions. Thanks are also due to Elizabeth J de Mello
for her ongoing support.
Our enthusiasm for taking the environmental sustainability
message to a wider audience has thankfully been shared by many
friends and colleagues. Their comments, suggestions and ideas have
woven their way into the finished text. A special mention to Duncan
McLaren and Oliver Tickell who reviewed early drafts, and Alex Long
and Gary Goodman who gave advice on structuring sections of this
book. They all helped us steer a steadier course. We are also indebted to
Bill Rees, whose thinking has touched us all. As a human ecologist, and
co-originator of the ecological footprint concept, his work underpins
much of the content.
These acknowledgements would be incomplete without thanking
our partners Andy, Elise and Susan who have acted as sounding-boards
and unpaid proofreaders throughout.
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Introduction
Nicky Chambers
Craig Simmons2
Mathis Wackernagel3
xx Sharing Nature’s Interest
NOTES
1 The first comprehensive publication on ecological footprinting is Our
Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth, Mathis
Wackernagel and William E Rees, New Society Publishers, Gabriola
Island, BC, 1996. It has been translated to various languages including:
Italian (through Edizioni Ambiente, Milan), German (through Birkhäuser
Verlag, Basel) and French (Ecosocieté, Montreal)
2 Craig and Nicky are co-Founders and Directors of Best Foot Forward
Limited, The Future Centre, 115 Magdalen Road, Oxford, OX4 1RQ, UK.
Web: www.bestfootforward.com, email: mail@bestfootforward.com
3 Mathis is a Program Director at Redefining Progress, 1904 Franklin Street,
6th Floor, Oakland, CA 94612, USA and Coordinator of the Centre for
Sustainability Studies / Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad,
Universidad Anáhuac de Xalapa, Xalapa, Ver, Mexico.
Web: http://www.rprogress.org, email: wackernagel@rprogress.org
Chapter 1
Redefining Progress
‘Progress means getting nearer the place you want to be. And if
you take a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you
any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing
an about face and walking back to the right road, and in that
case the man who turns back the soonest is the most progressive
man’ (C S Lewis in ‘Mere Christianity’)1
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
What will the world be like in 2050? By that time the human race will
have had to face up to many environmental and social barriers to real
progress. To take just a few examples:
These are just some of the big questions that society has only recently
begun to address under the umbrella term of ‘sustainable develop-
ment’.
In 1987 the Brundtland report Our Common Future popularized the
use of this phrase, defining it as, ‘meeting the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs’. Former UK Environment Minister John Gummer put it
more succinctly when he said that sustainable development amounts
to ‘not cheating on our children’.
2 Sharing Nature’s Interest
Friends of the Earth: ‘Meeting the twin needs of protecting the environ-
ment and alleviating poverty’2
UK Government: Social progress which recognizes the needs of everyone,
effective protection of the environment, prudent use of natural resources,
maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employ-
ment.3
Sir Crispin Tickell: Sustainable Development is ‘treating the earth as if we
meant to stay’4
The Body Shop: ‘Sustainability and sustainable development remain elusive
concepts. They have variously been referred to as, for instance, “vision
expression”, “value change”, “moral development”, “social reorganiza-
tion”, or “transformational process”’.5
Steve Goldfinger (on ecological sustainability): ‘Turn resources into junk no
faster than nature can turn junk back into resources’.6
See also Pearce, D, Markandya, A, and Barbier, E, 1989, Blueprint for a
Green Economy, Earthscan, London.
There are many other equally valid definitions (for examples see
Boxes 1.1 and 1.2). Despite the number and variety of definitions,
there are certain common principles that have gained widespread
acceptance:
Do you remember the three R’s of education: reading, writing and arith-
metic? Now it is time to learn about the six S’s of sustainability.
• Scale The scale of the human economy must not exceed the capacity of
the biosphere.
• Solar The power source of the future is the sun. Most human processes
will need to be powered directly (or indirectly) by solar energy.
• Cyclic (or ‘S’yclic?) If we do not reuse materials and recycle our wastes
– mimicking the cyclical processes of nature – then we will deplete our
resources and accumulate pollution.
• Shared A core principle of sustainability is that of equity. Nature’s
wealth should be shared rather than hoarded or appropriated by a
minority.
• Safe No activity should compromise the health of plant or animal
species, including people, by increasing the level of toxicity in the
environment.
• Sexy No one wants to live in a world without fun!
and usage of natural sinks for waste products. From the economist’s
viewpoint, Paul Ekins has said ‘what is destroyed by consumption is
the value (from the human point of view) that was added in produc-
tion’.11
The value or ‘quality of life’ we gain from consumption depends on
a number of factors such as the sorts of activity we do (playing a game
of cards is obviously less resource intensive than an outing in the car)
and how efficient we are at converting materials into goods and
services – one car might be more energy-efficient than another.
There is convincing evidence that above a certain threshold,
further consumption adds little to reported quality of life.12 For
example, the percentage of Americans calling themselves ‘happy’
peaked in 1957 – even though consumption has more than doubled
in the meantime.13
The cumulative environmental impact of any activity can be
considered as a function of consumption levels. Where consumption
patterns exceed nature’s carrying capacity, locally or globally, then this
is – by definition – unsustainable. In considering the impact of human
consumption we need to be aware of both the number of consumers
and the resource use associated with each activity.
Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren proposed the IPAT model where:14
Environment
Health
Materials
Community
Labour
Security
Goods and Quality of Life
services Politics
Shelter
Waste and comfort
Figure 1.1 Many aspects, though not all, of human quality of life are a
function of consumption
Blacktop
P = 1000 – the number of cars owned
A = 20,000 – the number of km travelled per year
T = 1/15 (or 0.0667) litres of fuel required per km
I = 1000 x 20,000 x 0.0667 = 1,334,000 litres (which corresponds
to 3150 tonnes of CO2) per year
Parktown
P = 500 cars
A = 10,000 km per year
T = 1/10 (or 0.1) litres per km
I = 500 x 10,000 x 0.1 = 500,000 litres (1181 tonnes of CO2) per year
Economy Environment
Society Society
Environment Economy
Figure 1.2 Environment, society and economy: (a) the traditional view on
the inter-relationship of economy, environment and society; (b) the ‘Russian
Dolls’ model – where we want to be
Quality of life
Not achieved Achieved
Protected
Natural capital
D
A Nature’s
carrying
capacity
Degraded
B C
Minimum
acceptable
quality of
life
Figure 1.3 Achieving quality of life within the means of nature; mapping
out the process of achieving sustainability
either the global or the local level. One notable example is the village
of Gaviotas in Colombia (see Box 1.4).18 Elsewhere eco-villages are
flourishing. According to the Global Eco-village Network in Europe,
these aim to provide ‘solutions for meeting human needs, protection
of the environment and an enhanced quality of life for all’. Their direc-
tory lists 57 eco-villages in 22 countries.19
Therefore, we can consider ‘developing sustainability’ as any move
away from Zones A, B or C towards Zone D. Communities or societies
in Zone D can be deemed ‘sustainable communities’. Once a commu-
nity is in Zone D, sustainable development, in terms of continuing to
raise quality-of-life standards while protecting natural capital, becomes
a reality.
For truly global sustainability, the global community needs to meet
the criteria of Zone D where all people can lead satisfying lives and
where nature is protected from overuse and abuse at both global and
local levels.
Redefining Progress 9
30
25
GDP/GPI per capita US$ ’000 (1992)
GDP
20
15
10 GPI
0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
The GPI adds up the value of products and services consumed in the
economy – whether or not money changes hands. For example, it
includes household work, parenting and volunteer work. Then it
subtracts expenses that do not improve well-being – the defensive
expenditures on crime, auto accidents, or pollution; social costs such as
costs of divorce, crime, or loss of leisure time; and finally, the deprecia-
tion of environmental assets and natural resources, including loss of
farmland, wetlands, and old growth forests, and the damaging effects
of wastes and pollution. What it shows for the US is what most people
feel: the net benefit of the economy is not rising as depicted by the
GDP – rather the net benefit to people is in decline (see Figure 1.4).
Although the GPI can summarize key issues in one number, it has
two shortcomings. First it mixes up the social and the ecological
challenges of sustainability. Sustainability requires quality of life for all,
as well as living within the means of nature – one should not be traded
off against the other. Also, rather than providing a direct account of
how things are, the GPI translates everything into money. This fails to
acknowledge the complexities associated with assigning a meaningful
12 Sharing Nature’s Interest
Advantages
Disadvantages
SUMMARY
Our understanding of what constitutes real progress is changing. In this
chapter we have explored the meaning of sustainability and identified its
key components – environment, society and economy, and their
relationship to one another. Furthermore, we have distinguished the aim
of sustainability from the process of achieving sustainable development.
Using the IPAT formulation we have also introduced the role that
population, lifestyle (or affluence), technology and consumption play
in the measurement of environmental impact.
The authors have presented their preferred definition of sustainabil-
ity which can be summarized as ‘delivering quality of life for all within
the means of nature’. This, and similar, definitions neatly capture the
tension between these two key sustainability goals.
Defining in detail what constitutes a sufficient quality of life, and
how this might be measured, is outside the scope of this book though
the GPI, a candidate indicator, has been presented. What we are
primarily concerned with in this book is how we might quantify our
use of nature, and compare this with the carrying capacity of our
ecosystems, so that we can assess environmental sustainability.
QUESTIONS
• Ecological footprinting deals only with measuring the ‘means of
nature’. This seems to ignore factors such as human health and the
well-being of society. Aren’t these important? (see Chapter 6,
Question 9).
• Isn’t sustainability about the triple bottom-line: environment,
society and economy? You seem to ignore the economy (see
Chapter 6, Question 10).
• Isn’t there more to social needs than merely ‘quality lives for all?’
(see Chapter 6, Question 11).
NOTES
1 With thanks to Bill Rees for turning us in the direction of this quotation
2 McLaren, D, Bullock, S, Yousuf, N, 1998, Tomorrow’s World, Earthscan,
London
3 Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, 1998,
Opportunities for Change, DETR
4 Conference speech 1998, Going for Green, London
5 Maria Sillanpää, The Body Shop, ‘A New Deal for Sustainable
Development in Business’ in Sustainable Measures, ed, Bennett, P and
James, P, 1999, Greenleaf, UK
6 Personal Communication, February 1999
14 Sharing Nature’s Interest