The ecological footprint (eco‑footprint) of a person measures how much productive land and water they need to produce the resources they consume and to assimilate the wastes they generate, given current technology. Measuring your own eco‑footprint can help you to use resources more carefully, so the well being of people -now and in the future- can be secured. Calculating the eco‑footprint of your organisation, household or school helps to identify the environmental impacts of everyday activities and can encourage progress towards more sustainable practices.

Eco‑footprints are measured in Global Hectares (gha). A global hectare is one hectare (100m²) of biologically productive space (land, sea and water course) with world average productivity. According to the Victorian EPA, the average Victorian has an eco‑footprint of 8.1gha, some 5% larger than the Australian average of 7.7gha, as calculated by the WWF in their Living Planet Report 2004. The global eco‑footprint average was calculated by WWF to be 2.2gha, some 20% larger than the 1.8gha 'fair earth share' available to each person globally. This data is summarised in figure 1 below.

The large size of our eco‑footprint effectively means that we are using resources faster than what the earth can replenish them, such that it would take the earth 1.2 years to replenish 1 year of global average human resource usage. Put another way, we would need 1.2 planets if everyone was to have a world average eco‑footprint. If every person in the world lived like an Australian, we would need 4.2 planets to support our consumption patterns!

	Figure 2: Ecological Footprint Per Person by Income Group (Source: WWF Living Planet Report 2004, page 23)

Given the large average eco‑footprint of people living in high income countries, the ability of the earth to stay within its carrying capacity occurs only because people living in Middle and Low income countries have eco‑footprints smaller than the global average or the fair earth share. See figure 2 for more details.

It is highly unlikely that nature will be able to continue to run in 'overdraft' permanently, so perhaps, as the WWF suggests, it is time to: make goods and services more resource efficient, reduce resource consumption, protect manage and restore natural ecosystems and curb population growth before major disruptions occur.

Calculate Your Eco-footprint.

Schools can calculate their school eco-footprint by using the Victorian EPA's school eco‑footprint calculator, which utilises their utility bills (school baseline data if in the AuSSI Vic program) and other data about their school.

Households can calculate their eco‑footprint using the EPA home eco‑footprint calculator.

Individuals can calculate their eco‑footprint using the EPA personal eco‑footprint calculator.

Individuals can also calculate their eco‑footprint using the Earthday international eco‑footprint calculator.