We all know that overconsumption is bad for Earth, but I was shocked to find out from taking my ecological footprint that it would take 3 Earths to sustain us all if everyone lived like me. And I’m fairly conservation-minded. This can be a kind of depressing statistic, but a fascinating one. Take it yourself, find out how you score. Then get your boss to take the office quiz. If you find you want to make changes to lower your score, then you can balance those luxuries that you need, and those that you don’t… If you want to do further research into ideas to cut down your material consumption check out this site for some basic tips or this one to lower your energy consumption.
The concept of the ecological footprint is based on a comparison between the amount of arable land on earth divided by its population. Apparently, when the total amount of ecologically productive land area is divided by the human population, there are about 4.5 acres (1.89 hectares) available for each person.
Our global footprint is 23% larger than what Earth can regenerate, which means that it takes Earth one year and two months to regenerate what we use in a year. Humans solve this imbalance by liquidating more assets. Check out how this breaks down by country and by other factors.
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