Newsroom
Media Inquiries: Contact Scott Mattoon, (510) 839-8879, ext. 302, scott@footprintnetwork.org
Press Releases
Ecological Footprint In The News
Articles by our staff
Coverage in Other Languages
Overshoot In The News
Press Releases
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Global Footprint Network Named One of World's Top 100
The Global Journal, a leading international publication that covers the issues and major players of global governance, named the sustainability think tank Global Footprint Network as one of the world's 100 Best NGOs this week.
Global Footprint Network, Geneva, Switzerland, January 24, 2012
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Wackernagel at the European Parliament: Is the European Meltdown a Euro Crisis or a Resource Crunch?
New Principles for Economic Success in the Era of Resource Efficiency and Biocapacity Constraints (Brussels) – With the recent food and energy crises, it has become even more evident that the 21st century will be shaped by ecological constraints. The question is: what’s the link between the current Euro crisis and these emerging resource constraints? At today’s STOA lecture at the European Parliament, Dr. Mathis Wackernagel, President of Global Footprint Network, will reveal the latest research results documenting the role of the resource constraints in shaping the current financial crisis.
Global Footprint Network, Brussels, Belgium, November 28, 2011
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New Framework for Government Bonds to Incorporate Ecological Risks
Early this week, the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) in collaboration with Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think tank, and leading financial institutions, will endeavor to shine a light on these questions with the launch a groundbreaking project to explore the role of natural resource accounting in strengthening risk models for government bonds.
Global Footprint Network, Washington D.C., USA, October 14, 2011
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Top Environmental Prize Honors Ecological Footprint Pioneer
The Zayed International Prize for the Environment, one of the world's most prestigious sustainability awards, will honor its five recipients next Monday, March 14, in Dubai. Dr Habib Al Habr, Regional Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, described the prize as the most important environmental award given to champions and pioneers in this field.
Global Footprint Network, Dubai, UAE, March 03, 2011
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Humanity Now Needs 1.5 Earths: Living Planet Report
Biodiversity is suffering continued declines as human demand outstrips nature’s regenerative capacity at an alarming rate, report shows.
Global Footprint Network, Oakland, Calif., U.S.A, October 13, 2010
Ecological Footprint In The News
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Footprinting Walks A Fine Line
The idea of calculating one's "footprint" began in the 1990s with the notion of an "ecological footprint," a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. In those terms, a footprint is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital relative to the planet's capacity to regenerate it. Organizations like the Global Footprint Network (whose founder, Mathis Wackernagel, helped popularize the concept) use footprint calculations to answer such confounding questions as "How many Earths would it take if everyone lived like us?"
Greenbiz.com, USA, January 25, 2012
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A Decade in Service of the Planet
DUBAI -The Emirates Wildlife Society (EWS) has been a pioneering environmental organisation in the UAE, instrumental in bringing about a quality shift in the approach towards green issues both at the governmental as well as individual level. Under the expert guidance of its global partner, the World Wild Fund (WWF), and with admirable support from the authorities, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) has created an atmosphere conducive for environmental work. Right from the initiatives like the Ecological Footprint Initiative (Al Bassama Al Bee’ah) to declaring Wadi Wuraiah as a protected zone, the EWS has in a decade of its service laid ground for the sustainable development of the UAE.
Khaleej Times Online, Abu Dhabi, UAE, January 03, 2012
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Forests into fixed income
Despite being relatively new to the fixed income market, green bonds offer responsible investors a good opportunity to invest sustainably. First issued by the World Bank in December 2008, green bonds have become an attrac¬tive alternative investment for responsi¬ble investors trying to integrate climate change into their portfolios.
Investments & Pensions Europe, London, England, December 01, 2011
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The "Super Committee" That's Not Meeting This Week
This "super committee" does not have any meetings scheduled this week, and despite the urgency and importance of its mission, it has no legal mandate or deadline. It doesn't even have a formal membership. For all practical purposes it doesn't exist. The accumulating debt that it needs to address is so large that it defies computation, but it easily dwarfs the worst of the federal debt projections. By the standards of Wall Street financial analysts, the entity which it seeks to save is "too big to fail." Nothing, however, guarantees that it won't. Indeed, unless the "super committee" gets busy, failure in some form is almost inevitable. The signs of impending collapse are all too apparent.
Robert Walker, Huffington Post, World, November 16, 2011
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Stuffing ourselves on Black Friday
Today is Black Friday, when holiday shopping hordes descend on malls across the country, and retailers hope to turn a profit as their accounting books transition from red ink to black. This year, Black Friday comes two months after Global Overshoot Day, when our planet's accounts — the ones that measure human demand on the planet's services that support our economies — transitioned the other direction, from black to red.
Los Angeles Times, USA, November 25, 2011
Articles by our staff
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September 27th is Earth Overshoot Day: the day when human demand exceeded the regenerative capacity
Katsunori Iha, Research Economist, featured in Science Links Japan. Global Footprint Network announced that “Earth Overshoot Day” this year fell on September 27th, the day when human demand exceeded the regenerative capacity of the natural biosystem in a year. This means that we will maintain “ecological debt” with three months remaining to the end of the year. The indicator used is derived from the Ecological Footprint analysis, a method that is fast gaining attention in recent years. Here, I would like to give an overview of the Ecological Footprint analysis, and the significance of what it analyses, “Earth Overshoot Day”. Read articles in French; Japanese; Chinese
Science Links Japan, Japan, November 11, 2011
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Stomping on biodiversity: humanity's growing Ecological Footprint
Alessandro Galli, Global Footprint Network's Senior Scientist, featured in the Commonwealth Ministers article. In 2002, leaders of the world’s governments, recognising the threat posed by the high rate of species declines, committed to significantly halting the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Yet, a 2010 study by Dr Stuart Butchart and others in the journal Science shows that leaders have failed to deliver on these commitments and have instead overseen alarming declines. In this article the author considers the urgent new initiatives to contain and reverse these global losses.
Commonwealth Ministers Reference Book 2010, London, UK, December 10, 2010
Coverage in Other Languages
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'La importancia de ver al planeta como una finca': Mathis Wackernagel
Este ingeniero mecánico fue el inventor del concepto 'huella ecológica'. Mathis Wackernagel me habla con entusiasmo, como si le hubieran dado una última oportunidad para convencerme de algo. No es un suizo promedio: hace bromas, sonríe mucho y tiene la paciencia de un maestro de escuela para explicarme los secretos de un tema que, aunque popular, podría servir para corchar al economista más serio. Este ingeniero mecánico fue el inventor del concepto 'huella ecológica', dos palabras con las que hoy recorre el mundo para advertirle a la humanidad lo cerca que estamos de un colapso.
El Tiempo.com, Columbia, November 15, 2011
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Guld i telefonen
Danmark er blandt eliten, når det kommer til, hvor meget vi forbruger. I en rapport fra WWF Verdensnaturfonden er Danmark placeret på en tredjeplads over de mest ressourceforbrugende lande, kun overgået af Qatar og De arabiske Emirater. Hvis resten af verden var lige så ivrige forbrugere som vi danskere er, skal der mere end fire jordkloder til, for at skaffe ressourcer nok.
Penge, DR1, Denmark, October 19, 2011
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La importancia de pensar como un ganadero de Texas
Lo que denuncia Mathis Wackernagel (Zurich, 1962) podría resumirse en una premisa muy simple: la toma de decisiones de los países sobre su consumo de recursos naturales tiene poco que ver con el cálculo que hace un ganadero de Texas para saber cuántas vacas puede alimentar en su finca.
El País, Santiago, Spain, June 24, 2011
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Contiamo le nostre risorse
Che non sia piu tempo di sprecare, si sa. Adesso tocca alla politica. Con un obiettivo: consumare meno e progettare meglio.
WIRED Magazine, Italy, May 01, 2011
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La Xunta estudia calcular la huella ecológica en Galicia para evaluar hábitos
La Xunta ha informado en un comunicado de esta iniciativa, tras el encuentro que han mantenido hoy el titular de Medio Ambiente, Territorio e Infraestructuras, Agustín Hernández, con el presidente de Ecological Footprint Network, Mathis Wackernagel, responsable del desarrollo de la Pegada Ecológica y otros indicadores de evaluación ambiental.
ABC, Madrid, Spain, June 23, 2011
Overshoot In The News
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UN asks for action on nature loss, citing poverty
Governments must protect nature better in order to safeguard their countries' wealth, says the UN, as ministers meet for a day of talks on biodiversity.
BBC, London, September 22, 2010
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Boiling the Frog
Is America on its way to becoming a boiled frog? The hypothetical boiled frog is a useful metaphor for a very real problem: the difficulty of responding to disasters that creep up on you a bit at a time. And right now, both the economic and the environmental frogs are sitting still while the water gets hotter.
The New York Times, New York, July 12, 2009
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Uganda likely to lose all forest cover in 50 yrs
Uganda will lose its entire forest cover in the next 50 years if the government does not embark on immediate efforts to halt rapid deforestation. Forests and tree planting can help mitigate the effects of global warming by increasing carbon storage and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Reuters, Nairobi, July 09, 2009
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Let's get real about alternative energy
We need to introduce simple arithmetic into our discussions of energy.
CNN, U.S.A., May 13, 2009
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Earth Day and the Elephant in the Room
Well, another Earth Day has come and gone. And amid all the articles and blogs, symposia and TV specials about all the things we can do to save the planet, once again it was hard to find any substantive discussion of the single biggest threat to the environment. Namely, the staggering rise in global population.
The Huffington Post, U.S., April 24, 2009