The ecological footprint concept was developed by William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel in the early 90’s as an accounting tool.

It evolved from the simple concept of carrying capacity, which is essentially the ability of earth to support life. However, in contrast to carrying capacity the ecological footprint concept asks ‘how much land do people require to support themselves?’.

This section answers many of the questions you may have about ecological and carbon footprints, including:

• what is the ecological footprint?
• how is the ecological footprint calculated?
• what does it show?
• how has it been used?
• are there any limitations?
• what are the advantages of applying ecological footprint analysis?
• what is the ecological footprint concept?