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Global
Footprint Network:
Advancing the
Science of Sustainability
Join Susan Burns,
Co-Founder and Managing Director of the Global Footprint Network; and Editor
in Chief, Pat Lynch, as they discuss the ways that we can help alter our
current course.
Listen Here
Name of Organization: Global
Footprint Network
Website:
www.footprintnetwork.org
Field: Sustainability
Date Founded: June 20, 2003
Founder: Mathis Wackernagel and Susan Burns
Level: International
Contact Email: Public inquiries:
info@footprintnetwork.org
Managing Director: Susan Burns
How many Members? 90 partner organizations
Mission Statement
Global Footprint Network’s mission is to foster a world where
all people have the opportunity to live satisfying lives within
the means of one Earth. Our work seeks to make ecological limits
central to decision-making by advancing the Ecological
Footprint– a resource accounting tool that measures people’s
demand on nature compared to what the Earth can sustainably
provide.
Why was Your Organization Launched?
Our latest calculations estimate that humanity’s demand on
nature, its Ecological Footprint, is 30 percent greater than the
planet’s ability to meet this demand. This ecological overshoot
is depleting the natural capital on which both human life and
biodiversity depend. Global Footprint Network was launched to
help end overshoot by making ecological limits a guiding force
in policy and decision-making at all levels.
What are the Organization’s Goals for this Year?
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Expand the use of the Ecological Footprint
by decision-makers in governments and businesses around the
world as a tool for informing policy and measuring progress
toward sustainability.
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Promote lasting gains in human welfare by
helping chart a course for human development that works
within the limits of what the planet can provide.
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Improve and refine the accuracy,
transparency and applicability of Ecological Footprint
methodology.
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Spark a global conversation about
ecological limits and overshoot.
Initiatives to Achieve Goals:
1. Our Ten-in-Ten Campaign aims to have 10
countries managing their ecological wealth in the same way they
manage their finances, with an eventual goal of the Footprint
becoming as prominent a metric as the Gross Domestic Product.
Twelve countries and the European Union are currently working
with the Footprint in some way. In June, Wales became the first
country to formally adopt and report on its Ecological
Footprint.
2. Through our Human Development Initiative, we are working in
regions such as Africa, China and India to assess their natural
resources and the pressures on those resources. Using the
Ecological Footprint as a tool for measuring sustainability,
these regions can begin to improve their citizens’ welfare while
protecting the natural capital upon which those gains depend.
3. Working with a community of leading researchers and a process
of public comment, we were able to make several major changes
and improvements to our methodology, which have been
incorporated into our data to be released in the fall of 2008.
4. Tools such as our
Ecological Footprint calculator
are helping people understand their individual resource
consumption. Speaking engagements at conferences such as Green
Week, the European Commission’s annual environmental conference,
and Bioneers in 2008 and the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland in 2009 are encouraging conversation about
ecological accounting among business and government leaders.
Annual Major Event:
Ecological Debt Day marks the day when we begin living
beyond our ecological means. It is the day humanity has consumed
the total amount of new resources that our planet can produce
this year. Last year, Ecological Debt Day was October 6. This
year, it is expected to be in September.
Credit: Wendy Markowitz
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