More and more often we hear about Earth Overshoot Day, the date, drawn up annually by the Global Foodprint Network, that marks the time of year when the natural resources provided by the planet are entirely consumed by mankind.
- Earth Overshoot day: what it’s all about
- How Earth Overshoot Day is calculated
- What is the environmental footprint?
Earth Overshoot day: what it’s all about
Earth Overshoot Day represents the debt incurred to our planet, the moment that determines thedepletion of the natural resources generated by the Earth in a calendar year, i.e. all the water, energy, mineral and food resources that the planet is capable of producing and therefore immediately available to mankind.
In fact, resources can be divided into two macro groups:
- Renewables: natural resources that do not run out and can be regenerated through natural processes.
- Non-renewable: natural resources that nature cannot replace at a rate sufficient to meet human consumption.
How Earth Overshoot Day is calculated
It is the Global Footprint Network which sets this date annually and does so using a set of environmental indicators, including theecological footprint.
The association calculates for how many days in a calendar year the biocapacity of the Earth, which we can briefly summarise as the ability of our ecosystem to provide natural resources and cope with man-made waste, manages to provide for and compensate for the ecological footprint left by man.
The days that remain between when the earth can no longer cope, and the end of the calendar year, are the so-called overshoot days.
While in 1983 the threshold day was 4 December, in 2023 it was 2 August.
What is the environmental footprint?
The environmental footprint, broadly speaking, is a measure of the amount of land and water area required by the human population to produce resources that are consumed and to dispose of man-made waste.
The environmental footprint is a significant index as it has been adopted as a starting point and method of comparison for undertaking strategies to reduce environmental impact, so much so that the European Commission issued a Recommendation (2013/179/EU) that aims at the adoption of “common methodologies for measuring and reporting environmental performance throughout the life cycle of products and organisations”.
Bottom line? 2 August 2023: we are indebted to the Earth as of this day. This is a global figure. And Italy? 15 May 2023.
Food consumption and transport account for 25% and 18% respectively of our footprint.
Not to mention the USA, where a lifestyle is noted that would require five planets if all humans were Americans.
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