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Development of Ecological Footprint to an Essential Economic and Political Tool

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  • Hans P. Aubauer

    (Department of Physics, University of Vienna, Alser Strasse 12/1/8, A-1090 Wien, Austria)

Abstract

This paper shows how the concept of the Ecological Footprint can be developed by incorporating the six procedures listed below, to create a single indicator of just distribution of the limited natural resources, between and within generations, and become a benchmark for decision-making between alternatives of consumption, life-styles and economic policies. Using this new tool, it should be possible to label every commodity, service and natural resource with the share it claims of the Earth’s surface. This, in turn, can enable the integration of natural limits into the economy through the complete internalization of costs within market prices, while also reducing resource throughput fairly and quickly without an undue loss in GNP. The six procedures are as follows: First, operating within the boundaries of the sustainable local yields of the biologically productive soil and water areas, without any input of non-renewable resources, particularly fossil fuels; Second, taking spatial variations of this yield into account; Third, considering only sustainable CO 2 -sinks; Fourth, including every exploitation of nature, for instance all material flows; Fifth, taking care of intertemporal effects and depletion; and sixth, preserving the natural habitats necessary for the survival of biodiversity, bearing the species/area relationship in mind.

Suggested Citation

  • Hans P. Aubauer, 2011. "Development of Ecological Footprint to an Essential Economic and Political Tool," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-17, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:3:y:2011:i:4:p:649-665:d:12021
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Kai Fang & Reinout Heijungs & Zheng Duan & Geert R. De Snoo, 2015. "The Environmental Sustainability of Nations: Benchmarking the Carbon, Water and Land Footprints against Allocated Planetary Boundaries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(8), pages 1-21, August.
    2. Teixidó-Figueras, Jordi & Duro, Juan Antonio, 2015. "The building blocks of International Ecological Footprint inequality: A Regression-Based Decomposition," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 30-39.
    3. Gaodi Xie & Wenhui Chen & Shuyan Cao & Chunxia Lu & Yu Xiao & Changshun Zhang & Na Li & Shuo Wang, 2014. "The Outward Extension of an Ecological Footprint in City Expansion: The Case of Beijing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(12), pages 1-16, December.
    4. Jordi Teixidó-Figueras & Juan Antonio Duro, 2012. "Ecological Footprint Inequality: A methodological review and some results," Working Papers XREAP2012-15, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Sep 2012.

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