Footprint Network Blog - Carbon Footprint
The joint project between the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and Global Footprint Network to assess the financial materiality of ecological risk was launched at the UN Foundation in Washington DC on 17 October 2011. Opening remarks from Paul Clements-Hunt (Head of UNEP FI) and Susan Burns (Senior Vice President of Global Footprint Network) showed a clear commitment from both organisations to this potentially ground breaking project. Richard Burrett, of Earth Capital Partners, also gave an inspiring presentation detailing not only the importance of this project but also how investors currently perceive the financial relevance of natural resources.
It is clear that the tightening constraints on resources and their potential impacts on national economies are not included within current financial analysis. Yet such factors are thought to have growing implications for the long-term credit risk of many government bonds, especially those with long-dated maturities.
A host of financial institutions were in attendance at the launch and participated in a stimulating discussion around the evidence base to show that ecological risks are becoming material for economies and how key ecological data can be linked to the financial and economic indicators. This project will endeavour to shine a light on such questions to explore the role of natural resource accounting in strengthening risk models for government bonds.
Global Footprint Network and UNEP FI would like to thank all those who participated in the launch event and invite any other institutions who are interested to join the project.
For more information please see the project brochure or contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Humanity has reached a new milestone as we hit 7 billion. Never before have there been 7 billion people on planet earth, all at the same time. As we welcome the 7th billion global inhabitant, we also acknowledge the challenges we will face due to a burgeoning population explosion, resource depletion, food and water scarcity and overcrowded cities. This is especially true at a time when humanity as a whole is already using the planets regenerative capacity 50 percent faster than it can renew.
Although humanity’s total demand is unsustainable, this consumption is very unevenly distributed among the 7 billion people. A large portion of humanity does not have enough resources to secure even their most basic subsistence needs. This suffering is intolerable. It affects the rest of humanity, too, most visibly through conflict and instability.
Therefore, Global Footprint Network is mapping how much nature we have, how much we use, and who uses what. In a crowded, resource constrained world this information helps decision makers understand our present resource situation and find options for avoiding unpleasant consequences.
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Global Footprint Network is the standard setting body for the only Ecological Footprint standards in the world. The Ecological Footprint standards set forth quality criteria for Ecological Footprint studies of sub-national populations, organizations, and products. The goal of the Ecological Footprint Standards is to build consensus among practitioners regarding Ecological Footprint methodology, transparency, and communications. This consensus is important because it helps to establish a forum or a common platform for understanding and communicating about natural resource constraints. To that end, the Ecological Footprint Standards are used as a way of maintaining the scientific credibility and accuracy of Ecological Footprint studies, the policy relevance, and the consistency and appropriateness with which the method is applied and findings communicated.
Global Footprint Network’s Ecological Footprint Standards have been established through a committee-based process that incorporates input from our Partnership Network and Public Comment. The Global Footprint Network Standards Committee is starting the process to review and revise the Ecological Footprint Standards. Participation in the Committee and Procedures for the Committee are outlined in Global Footprint Network Committees Charter. The result of this process will be updates to the 2009 Ecological Footprint Standards to be released towards the end of 2012.
Improving comparability
The original goal of the Ecological Footprint Standards is to increase the quality, reliability and consistency of Footprint assessments. As the Ecological Footprint is being adopted by a growing number of government agencies, organizations and communities as a measure of environmental performance, there is an even greater need for quality, consistency, and reliability. This review and revision process for the 2012 Ecological Footprint Standards is a way to maintain this goal of improving comparability.
In addition, as the Ecological Footprint methodology is applied in different circumstances by different practitioners, advances to the methodology and communications strategies are being made. Conducting a review and revision process every three years allows Global Footprint Network to stay on top of advances in Ecological Footprint science and application. By engaging with experts, our Partner Network, and public comment every three years, our Ecological Footprint Standards can allow for a dynamic process that encourages innovation and action.
Global Footprint Network is actively seeking input from our Partner Network and Public Comment
We invite interested parties to review our Ecological Footprint Standards and submit comments and recommendations for updates to be considered by the Standards Committee. The Standards Committee will start discussions in November, 2011. If you have suggestions that you would like the Standards Committee to consider, please send your input to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Your feedback is welcome during the entire process! Before the revised Standards are finalized in 2012, there will be two 60-day Public Review periods, one in March – May 2012 and the second in July – September 2012. These are your opportunities to provide more input as the draft develops.
How a Carbon Tax Will Help Australia Compete
In recent weeks, opponents of a proposed carbon tax have succeeded in fanning fear that the tax could hurt national competitiveness by denting demand for Australia’s coal and mining sectors. Yet such fears are decidedly misplaced. The Gillard government’s plan to put a levy on the worst contributors to carbon pollution reflects a move toward pricing that is rooted firmly in the ecological realities of the 21st century. It is pricing that promotes forward-looking investment and innovation, rather than subsidizing an outmoded status quo. And it is pricing that will ultimately mean more jobs and better lives for Australian residents, and more stability for the Australian economy.
Coal and mining executives protest that jobs could be lost if importing countries such as China and Japan have a reason to seek out other markets. Such concerns, however, beg a question: If jobs are lost today because of an uptick in the cost of doing business, what will be the impact on the sector as the global marketplace moves to cleaner, greener solutions? In a world facing climate change and growing constraints on resources, the good money is on those industries that lead the way in energy efficiency and clean technology. Australia’s mining sector—in particular its coal industry—is on the other end of that spectrum, topping the list in carbon pollution and environmental demand.
“We really need to stop thinking that this will mean acting out ahead of the world,” GE Capital’s regional chief executive Steve Sargent was quoted as saying in a recent article in Business Day. “We actually have a long way to catch up. Germany has broken the nexus between strong economic growth, strong trade growth, and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. With Australia, we have gotten worse.”
The booming profits of the coal and mining sector mask a growing cost to the health of another of Australia’s most important assets: its vast ecological wealth. Australia ranks seventh in the world in biocapacity, the amount of renewable natural resources its ecosystems can provide.
If well-managed, this self-replenishing source of wealth will offer Australia continued advantages, both in supplying the resources the rest of the world needs, and in providing for the needs of its own people. In a world in which the supply of renewable natural resources is shrinking while demand mushrooms, the potential value of this asset is inestimable. But there is a key problem: the principal is eroding.
Between 1961 and 2007, the most recent year for which data are available, Australia’s biocapacity per person fell by more than half, due largely to a similar amount of capacity being divided by a growing number of people. Total biocapacity has declined by about five percent. At the same time, Australia’s Ecological Footprint, the amount of productive land and sea required to produce the resources it consumes and absorb CO2 emissions, is the 12th largest in the world, and the country is one of the world’s highest per-capita emitters of carbon dioxide. This degree of resource-intensity implies significant changes not only to key sectors but to society as a whole if Australia is to keep step with the rest of world.
Analysis by investment firms such as Goldman Sachs, Citi, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan have put the impact of the tax at less than two percent of earnings for all but a very few Australian companies. These are negligible impacts in a time of soaring profits, and they scarcely approach the true costs of emissions.
The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering assessed that, for every megawatt hour produced by brown coal, a cost of $50 in greenhouse gas pollution and health impacts accrues to society. Such costs are paid for by citizens or borrowed against Australia’s future in ways such as depleted ecosystems and lost agricultural productivity.
The Gillard government’s plan to institute a carbon tax recognizes a key reality: If we continue to build our success on using ever more resources, we are preparing for our demise. If instead, we invest in building environmental capital and reducing ecological demand, we can adjust more comfortably, and even profitably, to a changing world. Mechanisms that help us do so are anything but uncompetitive. They are a strategy for managing our economy with an eye to the future rather than the past.
Hong Kong residents are living beyond the Earth’s means, according to a report released Sunday by Global Footprint Network and WWF.
As a society that relies extensively on resources from abroad, Hong Kong is particularly vulnerable to growing global constraints on resources, the report says. But in spite of its unsustainable consumption, there are a number of readily available measures that would enable Hong Kong to reduce its pressure on ecological services, and enable it to achieve a one-planet Ecological Footprint.
The Hong Kong Ecological Footprint Report, issued every two years, aims to provide a benchmark to track Hong Kong residents’ shifts in consumption, from which trends can be identified and actions proposed.
The 2010 report reveals that if everyone in the world lived a similar lifestyle to that of Hong Kong residents, we would need the equivalent of 2.2 Earths. In 2007, the most recent year for which data are available, Hong Kong residents had an average per person Ecological Footprint of 4.0 global hectares (hectares with world-average productivity). This level of demand is more than double the 1.8 gha that was available per person globally in 2007 to produce renewable resources and absorb CO2.
“Unsustainable demand on a global scale means that countries and regions such as Hong Kong will find it increasingly harder to meet their resource needs simply by relying on ecological services from abroad,” said Dr. Wackernagel. “The more it can provide a high quality of life for its residents on a smaller Ecological Footprint, Hong Kong will not only address global risks, but more directly, it will make its economy more resilient facing the future.”
The largest portion of Hong Kong’s Ecological Footprint—60 percent—comes from carbon dioxide emissions. Hong Kong’s carbon Footprint per person has grown 24-fold since 1962. While 26 percent of its carbon Footprint comes from CO2 emitted from within Hong Kong itself (for example, from vehicles and electricity use), the majority, 74 percent is embodied in goods and services produced abroad. Some 58 million tonnes of CO2 are emitted elsewhere to supply imports to Hong Kong.
Other major drivers of Hong Kong’s Footprint are consumption of seafood and timber products, which are mostly from unsustainable sources.
But there are reasons for optimism. In contrast to the rest of China, Hong Kong’s Ecological Footprint per person has declined 25 percent and leveled off since it peaked in the late 1990s. While it is no doubt benefiting from some increased efficiencies in the city, the decline appears largely due to vagaries in the trade of the embodied carbon of goods and natural resources, and of cropland products. It is mostly not the result of sustainable development policies.
One key way Hong Kong could reduce its Footprint is by boosting the market for sustainable goods. “Consumers can demand that the seafood and timber products we consume are produced sustainably,” notes Dr Andy Cornish, Director, Conservation at WWF-Hong Kong. “In this way we can leverage Hong Kong’s buying power and act as a regional catalyst to drive natural resource producers towards sustainability. In turn, this will create an increased and reliable supply of sustainable products for Hong Kong.”
With 70 percent of the average carbon Footprint coming from household consumption (as opposed to businesses or public infrastructure and services), individual choices have a key role to play. The report calls on Hong Kong to reduce excessive, inefficient and wasteful consumption. It also calls for transforming its modest agriculture, aquaculture and fisheries industries to minimize their impact to the environment.
“Solutions are readily available, and Hong Kong is a city used to reinventing itself,” the report concludes. “Reducing Hong Kong’s Ecological Footprint per person by half would approximate the biocapacity that is available globally and, therefore, make it a logical and sustainable objective.”
Read the Hong Kong Ecological Footprint Report 2010
Download pdf version
Radiohead, a well-known British rock-band, recently commissioned Global Footprint Network partner Best Foot Forward (BFF) to analyze the band’s Footprint and help reduce their tour’s carbon emissions. BFF’s report shows that transport, how fans get to Radiohead’s shows, is the most important lever for reducing the tour’s Footprint.
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After Copenhagen: What’s Next?
By Mathis Wackernagel
I have just come back from Copenhagen COP15. While it was a thrill and privilege to participate, it also made evident how far we still have to go to meaningfully address climate change and resource degradation.
I was touched to see the buzz and interest of 40,000 participants engaging at the official conference, and of many more participating in side events and demonstrations. Most paid their own way to Copenhagen, showing incredible commitment to making this world work for all, now and later. There is tremendous public will to make a difference, beyond the 193 country delegations and possibly over 130 heads of state who attended.
But much about the climate talks was quite puzzling as well:
• The negotiations reflected a blindness to the link between climate change and resource constraints overall. The fact is, without a strong Copenhagen regime, the pressure on ecological services will intensify more rapidly, and the world will get more volatile more quickly. If leaders were to recognize this, their approach would be the opposite of what it is now. They would arrive to Copenhagen with the mind-frame of: “We have a big incentive to make this deal work, because without it we will have to work harder to prepare our economies for an ecologically-constrained future.”
• The obvious was missing: Keeping climate change within two degrees Celcius means reducing carbon emissions at least 80 percent from 1990 levels, according to the IPCC. This essentially requires moving out of fossil fuel. But hardly anybody admits this mathematical truth.
• Further, if we accept the G-20s intentions (which was confirmed in even more strict parameters by the Copenhagen Accord of December 18) and its mathematical consequences of moving out of fossil fuel, then consider this: Why is it that we haggle so much about access rights to emissions? What we are talking about is close to zero emissions (after 2050). Why would anyone spend efforts and time on negotiating access rights to zero?
• We are still addicted to outmoded concepts like that of “developing” and “developed” countries. These terms embody the linear development model that is not only becoming physically impossible, but is also the one that got us into the climate problem in the first place. Essentially, this model is based on accepting the unintended consequence of liquidating our resource base. In its essence, it is becoming a negative sum game where individual success is only possible at the cost of the collective demise. What we need is green prosperity, or green development, that works with, rather than against, the budget of nature. And what we need even more badly is the recognition that such green prosperity serves each country much better than the current liquidation game.
• Perhaps most striking is that the great majority of leaders ignore their nation’s self-interest in acting boldly and quickly. After all, it takes decades to prepare countries, cities and economies for a resource-constrained future. Those countries that can retool their economies and make them healthy and robust while staying within ecological limits will be best positioned to meet the future. On the other hand, waiting for a global climate consensus will limit, if not jeopardize, countries’ ability to retool their societies in time, and succeed in the face of ecological constraints.
But there were also quite a few achievements:
• Many local initiatives – cities, pro-active businesses, regions - are already moving ahead even without global agreements. The United Arab Emirates’ Masdar City is a prominent example.
• REDD+ (United Nations’ collaborative programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) represents a solid recognition that land-use and biocapacity are keys to the global carbon cycle. REDD+ may still be too limited in scope, and difficult to operationalize, but it points in the right direction acknowledging the biosphere as the source of any activity. Ultimately, we run out of biosphere, not climate. Therefore, many solutions to climate change will come from carefully managing our use of ecosystem services.
• Delegations showed their level of commitment, negotiating through the night and working tirelessly towards solutions – all encouraging signs that we are at a historical crossroads. Sustainability is certainly no longer a sideshow.
In the coming weeks, we will be reporting to you with further details on how we will help shape climate action, and how this can go hand in hand with securing well-being for all.
With growing interest in resource degradation and climate change, Global Footprint Network will play an even more significant role in 2010. We are both excited about this prospect, and immensely thankful. We are grateful to you, our partners, and for your ongoing trust and interest.
The Scottish Government announced this November that it will use the Ecological Footprint as one of its performance measures as part of its innovative National Performance Framework. The Framework provides a unified vision and quantifiable benchmarks against which the government’s priorities are measured.
One of Scottland’s goals is to “... reduce the local and global environmental impact of our consumption and production “and to ‘reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050’. The Local Footprints Project, a Global Footprint Network partner, has just issued a consumption based analysis of Scotland’s Carbon Footprint, based on its 32 local authorities.
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Carbon dioxide is emitted whenever human activities involve the burning of fossil fuels. This waste will accumulate in the atmosphere, contributing to global climate change, unless it can be captured and stored by plants. The carbon Footprint therefore measures the demand on biocapacity that results from burning fossil fuels in terms of the amount of forest area required to sequester these carbon dioxide emissions. Note that this does not suggest planting forests is the ‘solution’ to climate change; on the contrary, it shows that the biosphere does not have sufficient capacity to sequester all the carbon we are currently emitting.
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