Ecological Footprint and the EU Resource Strategy

Potential of the Ecological Footprint for a basket of indicators for monitoring environmental impact from natural resource use

This study for the European Commission (DG Environment) assessed the potential of the Ecological Footprint and related tools and indicators to measure negative environmental impacts related to natural resource use as called for in the Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources.

We carried out an evaluation of the Ecological Footprint (EF) as a potential indicator for this purpose, and an assessment of whether a combination of the Ecological Footprint with other related tools and indicators could fulfil these requirements.

In this project, SERI was responsible for the evaluation of how other assessment tools can complement the Ecological Footprint in basket of indicators. We recommend adoption of a small indicator basket consisting of four tools and related resource indicators: Ecological Footprint (EF), Environmentally-weighted Material Consumption (EMC), Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP) and Land and Ecosystem Accounts (LEAC).

The identified basket of indicators can be applied to monitor de-coupling of economic growth from environmental impacts as well as illustrating the effectiveness of a number of specific policies aiming at a more sustainable use of natural resources (especially energy and climate policies, agriculture and forestry policies, material policies and spatial planning).

More information on this project on the website of DG Environment.

Publication and Download

Best, Aaron, Stefan Giljum, Craig Simmons, Daniel Blobel, Kevin Lewis, Mark Hammer, Sandra Cavalieri, Stephan Lutter and Cathy Maguire. 2008. Potential of the Ecological Footprint for monitoring environmental impacts from natural resource use: Analysis of the potential of the Ecological Footprint and related assessment tools for use in the EU’s Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources. Report to the European Commission, DG Environment.

Download the executive summary here.

Download the full report here.