Measuring your Ecological footprint

One way to gauge your impact on the earth is to calculate your ecological footprint. The concept, developed by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees at the University of British Columbia more than 25 years ago, is used to help individuals, local leaders and countries consistently and effectively measure their resource use and impact. Your footprint is measured in global hectares (gha) and calculates how much land is needed to sustain your lifestyle by looking at how you consume resources and generate waste (in areas like food, buildings, consumables, waste, transportation and water). The ecological footprint spurred the development of the broader footprint movement, like the carbon footprint, which measures the total GHG emissions that are associated with consumption, including a service or product’s manufacture, use and end-of-life processes. This measure can also be used by individuals, events, organizations and the like to measure their impact on the earth in tonnes of CO2 emitted.