Living with a One Planet Ecological Footprint
Source: https://www.iwa.wales/agenda/2022/09/living-with-a-one-planet-ecological-footprint/
It’s hard to know how much impact you are personally having on the planet through your consumption of goods and services. As well as the carbon footprint, there are other aspects of resource consumption to consider, including the question of how fast the earth can replenish the resources we use. The Ecological Footprint is a key sustainability metric which incorporates these considerations, and in Wales it is also the 14th National Well-being Indicator defined by the Well-being of Future Generations Act (2015). A ‘One Planet’ Ecological Footprint is the level at which we would be using a fair share of the Earth’s resources – which means the level that can be sustainably used, divided by the number of people on the planet – and this is identified as 1.88 global hectares (gha). According to the most recent results, the average footprint of Wales is about 3.28gha per person: if everyone were to live like the average Welsh citizen, we would need much more than a single planet’s worth of resources.