Personal Ecological Footprint

The report is a good, objective measurement of a few important factors of our consumption, in comparison to what resources are available. It gives a better indication of how we are doing then relative measures like 'we brought down CO2 exhaust by 10%' which can lead to the naive conclusion 'we are doing something, so we are doing fine'.

The report clearly shows that economically thriving countries place a heavy burden on the planet's resources, and even the existence of poor countries cannot make up for that.

To know whether I was a part of all those problems, I made an estimate of my personal footrprint, and I challenge everyone else to do the same.

My situation is not average, so I've adapted from the average Dutch figures; the unit is global hectare:

Resource	NL Average	My estimate	Explanation
Cropland	0.58	0.58
Grazing land	0.23	0.01	No lactose; hardly any meat
Forest: paper, timber	0.32	0.64	Small company: more paper
Forest: fuel wood	0.00	0.00
Fishing ground	0.30	0.30
Fossile-fuel CO2	2.78	0.00	No car; CO2-compensation
Nuclear	0.05	0.00	Green electricity
Built-up land	0.13	0.13	(what is this?)

The most important to me is comparison of my sitution to the resources available. Both to my country (which is low in resources so it is bound to look bad) and to the world as a whole.

Resource	Available	My footprint	Usage in %
Cropland	0.32	0.58	181%
Grazing land	0.05	0.01	24%
Forest: paper, timber	0.11	0.64	582%
Forest: fuel wood	-/-	0.00
Fishing ground	0.17	0.30	176%
Fossile-fuel CO2	-/-	0.00
Nuclear	-/-	0.00
Built-up land	-/-	0.13

On the whole, I use 255% of what is available to me in my country. As stated before, the Netherlands is low in resources. The comparison with the world as a whole therefore is more pleasing to look at:

Resource	Available	My footprint	Usage in %
Cropland	0.53	0.58	109%
Grazing land	0.27	0.01	4%
Forest: paper, timber	0.78	0.64	82%
Forest: fuel wood	-/-	0.00
Fishing ground	0.14	0.30	214%
Fossile-fuel CO2	-/-	0.00
Nuclear	-/-	0.00
Built-up land	-/-	0.13

On average, I use 97% of my share the world's resources. But that is no relief, for a number of reasons:

• Using 97% of the resources means that only 3% remains for wildlife. If we would all use 100% there would be nothing left for wildlife. Since we are even using more, we are draining the Earth's resources fast.
• Several resources are still independently over-used and that only works if someone else compensates for them. Regarding cropland, I am working towards some for myself, thereby increasing the cropland available to me and reducing my load on it. But it is clear that I also need to look into overfishing problems to be sure I don't destroy that part of the world.
• The use of paper relies on resources of other countries, and that is economically not wise. That alone is a good reason to use more recycled paper than average, and to continue supporting paper recycling. Ideally, I should work to reduce my use of wood-for-paper by a factor six in comparison to the national average.

Why this estimate, and why online? I hope to set an example. I think it helps a great deal if more people look into these figures. If you don't want to calculate it yourself, use one of the online footprint calculators instead. Knowing you're doing something may feel good, but only if we're doing enough can our planet sustain.