Ecological Footprinting

Last Wednesday evening we handed over the running of the monthly HGN Gathering to Pete Linnell for a very insightful session on Ecological Footprinting. With some mind-bending facts, figures and data detective work, Pete took us through the opportunities to develop understanding about the effect our lifestyle choices are having on the world, both on an individual and a nation scale.

Ecological Footprinting is a tool to determine, for any human activity, the area of land required to permit that activity in a continuous and sustainable way. The amount of each type of land required will vary between activities and between persons, areas or nations. Estimates of global footprint impacts calculate a “fair share” based on global productive land available to the total population. Any person or nation whose activities use more than their “fair share” are denying critical resources to others elsewhere or especially in the future“.

Anyone interested to read more please follow this link to the full document of Pete’s talk (“Goals, Indicators, Footprints”) .

And if this inspires you to check where you are now against a quick carbon footprint calculator, this is one we all tried out in the session: http://wwf-footprint-staging.torchboxapps.com  

For any more information, or feedback on the evening generally, please contact Pete: pete@synaptic.org.uk

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