IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v169y2020ics092180091930518x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On sustainability interpretations of the Ecological Footprint

Author

Listed:
  • Syrovátka, Miroslav

Abstract

This paper focuses on using the Ecological Footprint concept for sustainability assessment. The Ecological Footprint is a popular indicator of human use of environmental resources and is commonly presented at the country level by comparing the consumption footprint with territorial biocapacity, with a negative balance implying unsustainability. This constrains a country's consumption by its biocapacity but allows its stock of resources to be depleted if they are not associated with domestic consumption. This paper argues that this approach is legitimate but should not automatically constitute a default framework for interpretation. Two perspectives on entitlements to environmental resources are analyzed and, based on them, a novel approach to sustainability assessment is proposed. The paper further discusses the links between national sustainability and the related issues of self-sufficiency, consumption, and responsibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Syrovátka, Miroslav, 2020. "On sustainability interpretations of the Ecological Footprint," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:169:y:2020:i:c:s092180091930518x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106543
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180091930518X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106543?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Almas Heshmati (ed.), 2016. "Economic Integration, Currency Union, and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in East Africa," Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, Springer, number 978-3-319-30432-8.
    2. Lenzen, Manfred & Murray, Joy & Sack, Fabian & Wiedmann, Thomas, 2007. "Shared producer and consumer responsibility -- Theory and practice," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 27-42, February.
    3. Johan Rockström & Will Steffen & Kevin Noone & Åsa Persson & F. Stuart Chapin & Eric F. Lambin & Timothy M. Lenton & Marten Scheffer & Carl Folke & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber & Björn Nykvist & Cynthia , 2009. "A safe operating space for humanity," Nature, Nature, vol. 461(7263), pages 472-475, September.
    4. Steve Vanderheiden, 2008. "Two Conceptions of Sustainability," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56, pages 435-455, June.
    5. Daly, Herman E., 1990. "Toward some operational principles of sustainable development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-6, April.
    6. Tim Hayward, 2006. "Global Justice and the Distribution of Natural Resources," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(2), pages 349-369, June.
    7. Fang, Kai & Heijungs, Reinout & De Snoo, Geert R., 2015. "Understanding the complementary linkages between environmental footprints and planetary boundaries in a footprint–boundary environmental sustainability assessment framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 218-226.
    8. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Quaas, Martin, 2010. "What is sustainability economics?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 445-450, January.
    9. van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M. & Verbruggen, Harmen, 1999. "Spatial sustainability, trade and indicators: an evaluation of the 'ecological footprint'," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 61-72, April.
    10. Steve Vanderheiden, 2008. "Two Conceptions of Sustainability," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56(2), pages 435-455, June.
    11. Daniel W. O’Neill & Andrew L. Fanning & William F. Lamb & Julia K. Steinberger, 2018. "A good life for all within planetary boundaries," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 1(2), pages 88-95, February.
    12. Fiala, Nathan, 2008. "Measuring sustainability: Why the ecological footprint is bad economics and bad environmental science," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 519-525, November.
    13. Tim Hayward, 2006. "Global Justice and the Distribution of Natural Resources," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54, pages 349-369, June.
    14. Marques, Alexandra & Rodrigues, João & Lenzen, Manfred & Domingos, Tiago, 2012. "Income-based environmental responsibility," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 57-65.
    15. Huijbregts, Mark A.J. & Hellweg, Stefanie & Frischknecht, Rolf & Hungerbuhler, Konrad & Hendriks, A. Jan, 2008. "Ecological footprint accounting in the life cycle assessment of products," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 798-807, February.
    16. Baabou, Wafaa & Grunewald, Nicole & Ouellet-Plamondon, Claudiane & Gressot, Michel & Galli, Alessandro, 2017. "The Ecological Footprint of Mediterranean cities: Awareness creation and policy implications," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 94-104.
    17. Bryan Caplan, 2012. "Why Should We Restrict Immigration?," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 32(1), pages 5-24, Winter.
    18. Kitzes, Justin & Moran, Daniel & Galli, Alessandro & Wada, Yoshihiko & Wackernagel, Mathis, 2009. "Interpretation and application of the Ecological Footprint: A reply to Fiala (2008)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 929-930, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephen Morse & Ioannis N. Vogiatzakis, 2014. "Resource Use and Deprivation: Geographical Analysis of the Ecological Footprint and Townsend Index for England," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(8), pages 1-23, July.
    2. Syrovátka, Miroslav, 2024. "Ecological footprint, resource security and semi-autarky," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    3. de Boer, Bertram F. & Rodrigues, João F.D. & Tukker, Arnold, 2019. "Modeling reductions in the environmental footprints embodied in European Union's imports through source shifting," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2014. "Sustainable development in ecological economics," Chapters, in: Giles Atkinson & Simon Dietz & Eric Neumayer & Matthew Agarwala (ed.), Handbook of Sustainable Development, chapter 3, pages 41-54, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Ivanova, Diana & Wieland, Hanspeter, 2023. "Tracing carbon footprints to intermediate industries in the United Kingdom," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    6. Silvio Franco & Barbara Pancino & Angelo Martella, 2021. "Mapping National Environmental Sustainability Distribution by Ecological Footprint: The Case of Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-14, August.
    7. Simona Ioana Ghita & Andreea Simona Saseanu & Rodica-Manuela Gogonea & Catalin-Emilian Huidumac-Petrescu, 2018. "Perspectives of Ecological Footprint in European Context under the Impact of Information Society and Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-25, September.
    8. Stephen Morse, 2011. "Attracting Attention for the Cause. The Reporting of Three Indices in the UK National Press," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 101(1), pages 17-35, March.
    9. Thomas Wiedmann & John Barrett, 2010. "A Review of the Ecological Footprint Indicator—Perceptions and Methods," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(6), pages 1-49, June.
    10. Zhang, Yajuan & Wang, Zheng & Li, Shuangcheng, 2024. "Can a new power system help maintain planetary boundaries within a safe operating space?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    11. Jóhannesson, S.E. & Davíðsdóttir, B. & Heinonen, J.T., 2018. "Standard Ecological Footprint Method for Small, Highly Specialized Economies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 370-380.
    12. Shaikh, M. Abdullah & Hadjikakou, Michalis & Geyik, Ozge & Bryan, Brett A., 2024. "Assessing global agri-food system exceedance of national cropland limits for linking responsible consumption and production under SDG 12," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    13. Hans P. Aubauer, 2011. "Development of Ecological Footprint to an Essential Economic and Political Tool," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-17, April.
    14. Rostami-Tabar, Bahman & Ali, Mohammad M. & Hong, Tao & Hyndman, Rob J. & Porter, Michael D. & Syntetos, Aris, 2022. "Forecasting for social good," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1245-1257.
    15. Teixidó Figueras, Jordi & Duro Moreno, Juan Antonio, 2012. "Ecological Footprint Inequality: A methodological review and some results," Working Papers 2072/203168, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    16. Zhu, Qingyuan & Xu, Chengzhen & Pan, Yinghao & Wu, Jie, 2024. "Identifying critical transmission sectors, paths, and carbon communities for CO2 mitigation in global supply chains," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    17. Hametner, Markus, 2022. "Economics without ecology: How the SDGs fail to align socioeconomic development with environmental sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    18. Marques, Alexandra & Rodrigues, João & Domingos, Tiago, 2013. "International trade and the geographical separation between income and enabled carbon emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 162-169.
    19. Karl Steininger & Pablo Munoz & Jonas Karstensen & Glen Peters & Rita Strohmaier & Erick Velazquez, 2017. "Austria’s Consumption-Based Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Identifying sectoral sources and destinations," EcoMod2017 10472, EcoMod.
    20. repec:grz:wpaper:2013-03 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Yuhuan Zhao & Song Wang & Jiaqin Yang & Zhonghua Zhang & Ya Liu, 2016. "Input-output analysis of carbon emissions embodied in China-Japan trade," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(16), pages 1515-1529, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:169:y:2020:i:c:s092180091930518x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.