Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity is an Accounting Framework
Ecological footprint measures the natural resources needed to support economic activity. Biocapacity measures the natural resources available to regenerate within one year.
Ecological footprint is compared to biocapacity because both are measured in a metric called ‘global hectares’. A global hectare is one hectare of land or water with global average biological productivity.
When ecological footprint exceeds biocapacity in a given year, it is called ecological overshoot. Ecological footprint has exceeded biocapacity on a planetary scale since the early 1970s. The graph shows global ecological footprint divided by global biocapacity from 1961 to 2025. The red line represents ecological overshoot.
Ecological footprint and biocapacity share comparable components: fishing grounds, built-up land, cropland, grazing land, forest products, and forest carbon uptake. The only difference is that, in biocapacity, forested land serves a dual purpose: measuring the area that can supply pulp and timber products and the area that can sequester carbon emissions.
Fishing Grounds is the area of inland and marine waters necessary for the consumption of fish (ecological footprint) or that is available (biocapacity). It includes invertebrates, aquatic mammals, and aquatic plants.
Built-up land is the area occupied by infrastructure that includes housing, other buildings, roads and paved areas, and urban green spaces.
Grazing land is the area of land necessary to feed livestock (ecological footprint) or available to feed livestock (biocapacity). This is the animal feed that is supplied in addition to the cropland component.
Cropland is the area of land necessary to grow and harvest crops (ecological footprint) or that is available (biocapacity). This includes crops used for food and fibres, crops fed to pets, and crops fed to animals and fish that humans then consume.
Forest products are the land area needed for forest harvests to produce pulp and timber products (ecological footprint). This is the land area available to supply pulp and timber products and sequester anthropogenic carbon emissions (biocapacity).
Forest carbon uptake (carbon) is the area of forests that is required to sequester anthropogenic carbon emissions beyond the emissions sequestered by the world’s oceans, which come from the combustion of fuels and electricity generation. This is in addition to the carbon emissions embodied in traded electricity and globally traded goods, including global transport emissions (ecological footprint).