In Europe we are working with partners and countries and hope to get the European Union to adopt the Footprint as a resource accounting metric. Local governments in Australia are exemplary leaders in Footprint applications and sustainability policy. In Africa we are bringing an ecological lens to the sustainable development debate. The Government of Japan has adopted the Footprint as a national indicator; and cities, companies and NGOs in Canada are actively using the Footprint for a variety of applications. In other words, the Footprint is being applied from global scale down to products.

In essence, Global Footprint Network is very much an international organization with an even more international partner network active on five continents. The partners share the goal of making planetary limits central to decision-making everywhere, and putting an end to ecological overshoot. Partner organizations represent industries, national and local governments, and policy and research groups around the world and together we make progress and have a reach and impact that would be impossible for any of us acting alone.

An often used statistic is the 1.3:1 ratio of resources used versus resources replenished; basically we are running on a deficit. What kind of change in this ratio can a company expect if they follow your recommendations?

Our most recent Ecological Footprint accounts show that humanity used 30% more resources in 2003 than planet Earth was able to regenerate in that year – this overuse is our global ecological deficit. Basically, humanity is living off its ecological credit card. Ecological deficit spending means liquidating the planet’s ecological assets. While this can be done for a while, overshoot ultimately leads to the depletion of resources – as in the case of fisheries collapse, deforestation, or CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere.

This is the challenge humanity is facing: while we are facing global resource overuse, many people around the globe still need larger Footprints to live well – more corrugated roofs, more rice, more electricity for their hospitals, etc. Also, some of the planet’s capacity needs to be left aside for wild species. This means that industrialized lifestyles need to become far more resource efficient if we want to get humanity out of overshoot. Recognizing this, many are now talking about the need for a factor 10 revolution – finding technologies that can provide the same service on 10 times fewer resources. Many such technologies exist – fluorescent versus incandescent lights, or wind power versus coal-fired power plants, etc.