Spotlight On

Mission:   Global Footprint Network promotes a sustainable economy by advancing the Ecological Footprint, a measurement and management tool which quantifies human demands on the planet and compares them to the planet's capacity to meet those demands.

Background:   Founded in 2003 by Susan Burns and Mathis Wackernagel, Global Footprint Network engages with governments, institutions, and individuals to develop and promote the use of the Ecological Footprint. The latest National Footprint Accounts data (2003) shows that humanity's demand on nature, its Ecological Footprint, is 25 percent greater than the planet's ability to meet this demand. In other words, it now takes the planet one year and three months to regenerate what we use in a single year. Our economies operate as if ecological resources are limitless, without recognizing that our ever-increasing consumption is unsustainable, and is undermining the Earth's ability to provide for us in the future. Global Footprint Network believes that by measuring the nature we have versus the nature we use, the Ecological Footprint accounting tool can 1) reveal the Earth's ecological limits, 2) communicate the risk of boundless resource consumption, and 3) facilitate the sustainable management and preservation of the Earth's natural resources.

Core Focus:

• Ten-in-Ten Campaign
  In 2005 Global Footprint Network launched our "Ten-in-Ten" campaign with the goal of institutionalizing the Ecological Footprint in at least ten key nations by 2015. The aim is for ecological accounting to be given as much consideration as economic accounting.
• National Footprint Accounts Research
  Global Footprint Network serves as the steward of the National Footprint Accounts, the calculation system that measures the ecological resource use and resource capacity of nations over time. Based on approximately 4,000 data points per country per year, the accounts calculate the Footprints of 152 countries from 1961 to the present. These accounts provide the core data that is needed for all Footprint analyses worldwide.
• International Standards
  The adoption of the Ecological Footprint as a trusted sustainability metric depends on the scientific integrity of the methodology, consistent and rigorous application of this methodology across analyses, and results being reported in a straightforward and non-misleading manner. To meet these goals, Global Footprint Network has created a consensus-based committee process to establish standards governing all Ecological Footprint analyses worldwide.
• Network Building and Outreach
  Global Footprint Network is building a network of the world's leading practitioners and institutions working to expand awareness and use of the Ecological Footprint. The network currently includes 77 partner organizations on five continents. Through a newsletter, website, trainings, and media campaigns Global Footprint Network is sparking a global dialogue about ecological limits and overshoot.
• Strategic Applications
  In order to extend the Footprint into new domains and to develop new application methodologies and tools, Global Footprint Network engages in a select number of strategic projects with government agencies, nonprofits, and businesses. Many of these projects are conducted in collaboration with our partners.
• Interactive Global Footprint Calculator
  Global Footprint Network is creating a new online calculator so that people around the world can understand their own Footprints, take action to live a more sustainable life, and join a worldwide community of people who are doing the same. The calculator will be scientifically more robust and sophisticated than current online calculators and will include a simulations tool allowing users to explore a variety of sustainable living scenarios.

Major Accomplishments in 2006-2007:

• Published the Living Planet Report 2006 with WWF International.
• Facilitated more than 40 fee-for-service projects, including:
  • partnering with EPA Victoria, GPT Group (one of Australia's largest real estate groups), and LendLease Retail, to build a calculator that uses the Footprint to help retailers make better green building design choices;
  • collaborating on the One Planet Business initiative (with WWF UK, Best Foot Forward, the Stockholm Environment Institute, SERI, and SustainAbility), to bring the Ecological Footprint to the corporate world and to catalyze sector-wide shifts to transform these industries toward a more sustainable future.
• Organized a global media campaign to promote Ecological Debt Day, October 6, 2007, which marked the day in 2007 when humanity began using more resources than the planet regenerated in all of 2007.
• Recipient of a 2007 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
• Executive director Mathis Wackernagel received an honorary doctorate from the University of Berne.
• Released a German version of the educational DVD.

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