The only metric that tracks how much nature we have - and how much nature we use
This book is a loud wake-up call to everyone.
- CHRISTIANA FIGUERES, former Executive Secretary, UNFCCC
Looking for a science-based, practical tool to navigate your future on Earth? Here it is.
- PROF. JOHAN ROCKSTRÖM, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
OUR ECONOMY is running a Bernie Madoff-style Ponzi scheme with the planet. We use future resources to run the present, using more than Earth can replenish. Like any such scheme, this works for a limited time, followed by a crash.
Avoiding ecological bankruptcy requires rigorous resource accounting - a challenging task, but doable with the right tools.
Ecological Footprint accounting, first introduced in the 1990s and continuously developed, continues to be the only metric that compares overall human demand on nature with what our planet can renew - its biocapacity - and distils this into one number: how many Earths we use.
Ecological Footprint provides a complete introduction, covering:

• Footprint and biocapacity accounting
• Data and key findings for countries
• Worldwide examples including businesses, cities, and countries
• Strategies for creating regenerative economies.

Whether you're a student, business leader, future-oriented city planner, economist, or have an abiding interest in humanity's future, Footprint and biocapacity are key parameters to be reckoned with, and Ecological Footprint is your essential guide.
A momentous development, and one that all citizens of the planet should know about.
- RICHARD HEINBERG, author, The End of Growth and Peak Everything
Reveals both our alarming self-inflicted situation and the way forward.
- THOMAS E. LOVEJOY, Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, Institute for a Sustainable Earth, George Mason University
Mathis Wackernagel is co-creator of the Ecological Footprint and president of Global Footprint Network, based in Oakland, California. www.footprintnetwork.org.
Bert Beyers is a senior editor at one of Germany's largest radio stations, located in Hamburg.