Ecological Footprint measures the area needed to meet the demands on humanity’s production and consumption of forest products, lands for infrastructure and settlements, food and other fibres, and the sequestration of anthropogenic carbon emissions. Ecological Footprint is compared to Biocapacity which measures the capacity of lands and waters to sustain an Ecological Footprint.

Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity are made up of comparable components; fishing grounds, built-up land, cropland, grazing land, forest products, and forest carbon-uptake. The only difference between the components is that forested land for Biocapacity, has a dual purpose of measuring the area that can supply products derived from pulp and timber and the area that can sequester carbon emissions.

These statistics are measured in a single spatial unit, global hectares. Using a single unit allows for comparability, between Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity and between times and spaces. Global hectares are also highly scalable, there are examples of this metric used at the global, national, regional, community and individual levels.