Quick Tip: Ecological Footprint
You have probably come to this site looking for reasons to reduce your carbon footprint or make your life greener. However there is another term that many people that hasn’t been battered about as much as ‘Carbon Footprint’.
This is the term ‘Ecological Footprint’. Wikipedia’s states this as:
The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate it. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste, given prevailing technology and resource management practice. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how many planet Earths it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle.
This metric differs in the fact that it takes into account four different categories:Carbon, Goods/Services, Food and Housing. Rather than being measured in tonnes of CO2, the Ecological Footprint is measured in how many hectares of productive land an average person needs to survive. So we can see that this measure, is alittle more encompassing than the carbon footprint. This amount of land we need works out to be approximately 23.5 hectares for an individual person. The real kicker is however, we only have 15.7 hectares on Earth for each person, so you can see we are vastly overshooting our capacity.
What can we do to help reduce our Ecological footprint? Well the answer isn’t as complicated as you would think. As Carbon is still part of the ecological footprint, all the things you are doing already to reduce your carbon footprint will still apply. However, now you have think more on the goods/services and food you use and how you live in your house.
Think about the things you are buying, whether it is from the provider of your electricity, to where you buy your food. Contreversially changing your diet to a Vegetarian one can nearly reduce your footprint a whole hectare! Think about what things in your house can be improved, whether you need a new efficient boiler, insulation. Or even little things, like how long you leave the taps on, can make a great difference in your household eco footprint.
So I urge you, when you are considering your carbon footprint and all the ways you trying to reduce it. Have a think on what you can do to reduce your ecological footprint aswell.
