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Militaries generate globally significant climate and biocapacity damage in both peacetime and wartime. This scenario is historically underpinned by organisational and socio-psychological barriers, ...

One of the most critical problems of today is the environmental policies with the focus on economy. Despite the many efforts of global organizations, environmental pollution is the subject of human beings. For this, the most polluting countries attract the attention of researchers. Many studies produce economy-centered environmental policies for the USA. However, the asymmetric effect of natural resources on environmental pollution has been neglected in the literature. In this paper, the effects of economic growth, renewable energy, biocapacity, and natural resources on the ecological footprint are addressed within the framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis over the period 1980-2017. Empirical findings confirm that economic growth and biocapacity increase environmental degradation, while renewable energy consumption helps reduce environmental damage. More specifically, when the results are analyzed in terms of natural resources, positive shocks in natural resources contribute to reducing environmental damage, while negative shocks in it negatively affect the environmental quality. The paper presents important policy implications for economy-centered environmental issues.

Our goal is to propose the ecological footprint as the first growth restriction that currently faces the Mexican economy. To capture the attention of both orthodox and heterodox economists, we will analyze three restrictions on growth, namely, on the supply, demand, and biocapacity side. Our first recommendation highlights the need for Mexico to fully redesign its public policies in order to substantially improve its results in terms of environmental sustainability hand in hand with a much better distribution of income and wealth. A limitation lies in the review of only the neoclassical and post-Keynesian growth theories, involving a personal selection from the literature. As far as we know, this document represents the first study that incorporates within the theories of economic growth the restriction linked to biocapacity and the ecological footprint in Mexico. The main conclusion constitutes a local echo of world literature −the immediate challenge facing Mexico and other societies is to make any economic-social result compatible with a single earth planet.

Turkey's ecological footprint has recently been increasing, while its biocapacity has been decreasing. Furthermore, the country's CO2 emissions have been rising substantially in recent decades. Therefore, this study aims to identify the factors that are changing the CO2 emissions in Turkey, not only at the aggregated level but also for the sectors with the highest increases in CO2 emissions, namely, electricity and heat production. Research into the aggregated CO2 emissions and the sector-level analysis covered the period 1990-2017. The Shapley decomposition method was utilized, and the impacts of five factors, namely, scale effect, migration effect, population, energy intensity, and carbon intensity, were considered to examine the changes in total CO2 emissions. Regarding the analysis of the electricity and heat production sectors, the roles of four factors, namely, income effect, electricity intensity, fuel structure, and pollution coefficient, were investigated by using the same decomposition approach. The results showed that the scale effect is the primary driver of acceleration of total CO2 emissions in Turkey; population, migration, and carbon intensity effects follow the scale effect in this respect. Energy intensity significantly decreases Turkey's total emissions. For the electricity and heat production sectors, the Shapley decomposition results showed that the income effect, electricity intensity, and fuel structure increase the country's CO2 emissions rapidly. The pollution coefficient was the only factor that decreased CO2 in these sectors in the studied period. This study reveals that Turkey is still deficient in terms of green development processes, which are essential for a sustainable future.

Human beings are not only a part of our planet's ecosystems, but also, they are massively overusing them. This makes ecosystem protection, including biodiversity preservation, vital for humanity's future. The speed and scale of the threat are unprecedented in human history. The long arch of evolution has been confronted with such a high level of human impact, that we are now facing the sixth mass extinction event, 66 million years after the last one. This threat heightens the imperative for bold human intervention. Our paper identifies three strategies for such an intervention. First, and possibly most challenging, human demand needs to be curbed so it fits within the bounds of what Earth's ecosystems can renew. Without meeting this quantitative goal, biodiversity preservation efforts will not be able to get scaled. Second, in the transition time, we must focus on those locations and areas where most biodiversity is concentrated. Such a focus on 'hotspots' will help safeguard the largest portion of biodiversity with least effort. Third, to direct biodiversity preservation strategies, we need to much better document the existence and distribution of biodiversity around the globe. New information technologies could help with this critical effort. In conclusion, biodiversity preservation is no longer just a concern for specialized biologist but is becoming a societal necessity if humanity wants to have a stable future.

Exploring the ‘Safe Operating Space’ of nations are important for devising suitable strategies for the effectual implementation of UN-Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs). In this context, the present study attempts to ascertain the environmental and social challenges hindering sustainable development (SD) in India along with linking these challenges to the SDGs and policy mechanisms in place for their alleviation. Environmental issues were determined by down-scaling the planetary boundaries (PB) to national scales while the social issues were highlighted in terms of their deprivation rates fixing the possession rates for all indicators at hundred percent. An in-depth analysis of available literature and scoping of national reports and databases were undertaken for the determination of national boundaries and the retrieval of values against the selected indicators, respectively. Furthermore, the existing policies and national missions were critically assessed to establish the linkages between existing challenges, SDGs and government policies. Results obtained highlighted gender inequality and severely stressed biocapacity as well as land use change as the major social and environmental issues, respectively. However, indicator based statistics compiled for rural India showed improved possession rates in the sanitation and electricity sectors thereby signifying the progress achieved by the country in these fronts. Analysis of policy frameworks revealed the existence of multiple interconnections between the SDG targets and environmental and social dimensions and thereby highlighting the role of governance for SD. A national policy for ‘Safe Habitat and Sustainable Environment’ along with several policy recommendations such as exploring the potential of education and research for SD were proposed for boosting the sustainability governance in India.

Document Information Language:English Accession Number: WOS:000518874500023, Renewable energy technologies are promising, yet, very little is known about its role as a limiting factor in fossil fuel-attributable environmental degradation - especially in high-income countries. This study investigated the dynamic effect of renewable energy consumption, economic growth, biocapacity and trade policy on environmental degradation in the United States from 1985Q1 to 2014Q4. To achieve this objective, the study applied an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to obtain the long-run and short-run dynamic coefficients. Toda-Yamamoto causality test was used to examine the direction of causality while Cholesky decomposition test was for innovative accounting to validate the estimated models. The empirical results divulged that a decline in environmental degradation can be attributed to an increase in renewable energy consumption through its negative effects on ecological footprint. Economic growth and biocapacity were found to exert upward pressure on ecological footprint; however, trade policy exerts downward pressure on ecological footprint. A two-sided causal relationship was established between economic growth and ecological footprint as well as economic growth and biocapacity. In contrast, a one-way causality was confirmed running from trade policy to renewable energy consumption and from renewable energy consumption to biocapacity. The innovative accounting revealed that 14.79% and 8.41% of renewable energy consumption and trade policy caused 0.60% and 9.88% deterioration in the environment. Hence, country-specific energy policies that increase the share of renewable energy in the energy portfolio are recommended., S.A.S acknowledges the financial support of Nord University Business School.

Eradicating world hunger—the aim of Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2)—requires a social–ecological approach to agrifood systems. However, previous work has mostly focused on one or the other. Here, we apply such a holistic approach to depicting the global food panorama through a quantitative multivariate assessment of 43 indicators of food sovereignty and 28 indicators of sociodemographics, social being, and environmental sustainability in 150 countries. The results identify 5 world regions and indicate the existence of an agrifood debt (i.e., disequilibria between regions in the natural resources consumed, the environmental impacts produced, and the social wellbeing attained by populations that play different roles within the globalized agrifood system). Three spotlights underpin this debt: 1) a severe contrast in diets and food security between regions, 2) a concern about the role that international agrifood trade is playing in regional food security, and 3) a mismatch between regional biocapacity and food security. Our results contribute to broadening the debate beyond food security from a social–ecological perspective, incorporating environmental and social dimensions.

Management of natural resources is pivotal for sustained economic growth—the increasing ecological footprints causing biocapacity deficit threaten the resource conversation agenda. The study identified the potential causes and consequences of natural resource depletion in a broad cross-section of 138 countries. Ecological footprints, international migrant stocks, industrial value-added, and population growth influenced natural resource capital across countries. The results show that ecological footprints, industrial value-added, and population growth are the detrimental factors of resource capital. In contrast, continued economic growth is helpful to conserve natural resources for future generations. The rise and fall in the natural resource degradation are evident in the wake of international migrants’ stocks to support an inverted U-shaped relationship between them. The Granger causality inferences confirmed the one-way linkages, running from international migrant stocks, economic growth, and population growth to natural resource degradation. It verifies migrants-led, affluence-led, and population-led resource degradation. Ecological footprints Granger causes industrial value-added across countries. The forecasting estimates suggested that economic growth would likely to influenced greater in magnitude to resource degradation by its innovation shocks of 4.791%, followed by international migrant stocks, population growth, ecological footprints, and industrial value added by their innovation shocks of 4.709%, 1.829%, 1.247%, and 0.700%, respectively. The study concludes that international migrant stocks should manage smartly, causing more resource degradation via a channel of increasing biocapacity deficit across countries.

Sustainable development and reducing environmental pressure are major issues that concern developed as well as developing countries. Although researchers widely use carbon dioxide emissions and ecological footprint within the scope of environmental degradation, a more comprehensive ecological indicator is needed to assess environmental sustainability. In this context, the load capacity factor enables a comprehensive environmental sustainability assessment through the simultaneous analysis of biocapacity and ecological footprint. However, there are few studies analyzing the determinants of load capacity factor and this study aims to fill this gap for Indonesia. Using the recently developed Fourier quantile causality test, this study investigates the impact of income, export diversification, non-renewable and renewable energy consumption on the load capacity factor for Indonesia during 1965Q1–2014Q4. The results show unidirectional causality from non-renewable energy consumption to the load capacity factor at all quantiles, while income, export diversification, and renewable energy are the causes of environmental quality at middle and higher quantiles (within 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9). Most importantly, renewable energy and export diversification increase the load capacity factor and thus support environmental quality. In contrast, an increase in income and consumption of non-renewable energy reduces the load capacity factor. These results highlight the importance of renewable energy and export diversification for the sustainable development of Indonesia.

Biocapacity stability is an important foundation for regional ecosystem stability, ecological service security, and development sustainability. This paper aimed to study the spatial pattern, evolution characteristics, and future trend of biocapacity in Xilingol. Based on GlobeLand30 data in 2000, 2010, and 2020, combined with logistic regression method, CA-Markov model, and biocapacity model, the authors simulated the land use scenario and distribution of biocapacity in 2030. The spatial distribution pattern and spatiotemporal evolution process of regional biocapacity were analyzed in detail. The results showed that: (1) Biocapacity was jointly restricted by land use type, yield, and equivalence factor. The high values were mainly distributed in the farmland areas of the south, and the meadow grasslands, hills, mountains, hidden forests of the east; the median values were mainly distributed in the typical grasslands of the east, the central and the south; the low values were mainly distributed in the desert grasslands of the central and the west; the zero values were mainly distributed in the Gobi and the deserts of the northwest. (2) From 2000 to 2020, the regional biocapacity increased from 9.137 × 106 gha to 9.289 × 106 gha, with an increase of 1.67%. It was expected that from 2020 to 2030, with the continued reduction of farmland, the increase of forest and grassland, and the improvement of grassland coverage, the regional biocapacity will continue to increase by 0.70%, reaching 9.354 × 106 gha.

The key and fundamental aspects of long-term sustainable urban development are to ensure a sustainable transport system and mobility. The study assessed the sustainability of the transportation system through using the Emissions and Bio-capacity Index (EBI) approach for a developing city, named Khulna City Corporation which has different public transport modes. Vehicular CO2 emissions, carbon uptake land, and biocapacity of fourteen traffic nodes were estimated for identifying the responses of existing landforms to vehicular CO2 emissions. To calculate net CO2 emissions at specified traffic nodes, traffic volume, fuel-use types, and vehicle travel distance data were utilized. The bio-capacity of the land covers of the selected nodes to absorb vehicular CO2 emissions was calculated by GIS-based Remote Sensing methods. Total vehicular CO2 emissions have been calculated 30232.60 tons/year where 50.71% emits from Mahindra. Six of the fourteen nodes had very lower EBI values, corresponding to a higher level of CO2 emissions and low biocapacity which have been considered unsustainable as future traffic nodes. The use of vehicles capable of carrying fewer people, excessive trip generation, inadequate public transport options, narrow road-width, and declination of bio-productive areas are found mainly responsible for unsustainability. The recommended policies will help the urban managers and policymakers to build a sound and sustainable urban environment by controlling emissions.

Humans have always benefited from natural sources to satisfy their needs. Today, with the increase in population, the natural resources on our earth are decreasing and assumed to be consumed in the near future because of the consciousness of the individuals and the consciousness of consumption away from sustainability. It is important to determine how many planets the world will need in the future if the individual continues to live that way with his current consumption habits. The concept of ecological footprint emerges in determining this need. In this study, ecological and carbon footprints were calculated and evaluated according to the consciousness and consumption habits of Adıyaman Directorate of Provincial Agriculture and Forestry staffs. Web-based "Ecological Footprint Calculation Survey" was used as data collection tool in the research. Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation were used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the calculations, the average ecological footprint of technical and administrative staffs was determined as 2.37 gha person−1, the average carbon footprint was 14.52 tons person-1 and the biocapacity deficit caused by technical and administrative staffs was -0.93 gha person−1 . According to these results, at least 1.41 worlds are needed for Adıyaman Directorate of Provincial Agriculture and Forestry staffs for a sustainable life., İnsanoğu ihtiyaçlarını karşılamada daima doğal kaynaklardan faydalanmıştır. Bugün nüfusun artmasıyla birlikte, bireylerin bilinçsizce ve sürdürülebilirlikten uzak tüketim anlayışı nedeniyle dünyamız üzerindeki doğal kaynaklar azalamakta ve yakın bir gelecekte tükeneceği varsayılmaktadır. Bireyin mevcut tüketim alışkanlıkları ile yaşamına bu şekilde devam etmesi halinde, gelecekte dünya gibi kaç gezegene ihtiyaç duyacağının belirlenmesi önemlidir. Bu ihtiyacı belirlemede karşımıza ekolojik ayak izi kavramı çıkmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, Adıyaman İl Tarım ve Orman Müdürlüğü çalışanlarının bilinç ve tüketim alışkanlıklarına bağlı olarak ekolojik ayak izleri hesaplanmış ve değerlendirilmiştir. Araştırmada veri toplama aracı olarak web-tabanlı “Ekolojik Ayak İzi Hesaplama Anketi” kullanılmıştır. Verilerin analizinde; ortalama, standart sapma gibi betimsel istatistikler kullanılmıştır. Hesaplamalar sonucunda, teknik ve idari personellerin ekolojik ayak izi ortalaması 2.37 kha kişi−1 , karbon ayak izi ortalaması 14.52 ton kişi-1 ve sebep oldukları biyokapasite açığı -0.93 kha kişi−1 olarak belirlenmiştir. Bu sonuçlara göre sürdürülebilir bir yaşam için Adıyaman İl Tarım ve Orman Müdürlüğü çalışanlarına yaklaşık olarak 1.41 dünya gerekmektedir.

The Next-11 (N11) countries have witnessed great advancements in economic activities in the past few years. However, the simultaneous attainment of environmental sustainability and improved human well-being has remained elusive. This study probes into ecological footprint (EF) and human well-being nexus in N11 countries by applying advanced estimation techniques compatible with heterogeneity, endogeneity, and cross-sectional dependence across country groups. From the findings, human well-being, captured by the human development index, increases the EF, and EF also increases human well-being which suggests a strong trade-off between both indicators. This shows that policies that are channeled toward promoting human well-being are not in consonance with environmental wellness. Financial development and biocapacity increase the EF, while natural resources and globalization reduce it. Human well-being increases the EF in all the countries except in Egypt. This study argues that strong institutions could help mitigate the trade-offs and ease the simultaneous attainment of both environmental preservation and improved human well-being. The limitations of the study, as well as, possible directions for future research are discussed.

Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting is approached in this brief from a systems perspective. Natural capital is seen as the foundation for all socioeconomic potential and action. Without nature, we are unable to capitalise on resources that are necessary to provide services and without which humanity would suffer. Using the Ecological Footprint, measured in in global hectares, it has been estimated that roughly 12 billion global hectares exist to support all life on Earth and human activities. If this is treated as Earth’s carrying capacity, then it sets an upper boundary to resource exploitation. The two main threats to this life support system are human population size and consumption behaviour beyond basic life needs. Lavish lifestyles based on excessive consumption on a mass scale can cause problems of dwindling resources that need safeguarding. In this chapter, the literature that supports this framework is delineated to set the stage for the Ecological Footprint as a consumption-based composite indicator. The chapter conveys the evolution of this sustainability metric from a theoretical perspective that is grounded in the socioenvironmental as well as ecological economics in order to encapsulate an integrated approach from a systems perspective.

Beyond the anticipated experience associated with tourism destinations, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has further tasked (especially the destination countries) on the importance of tourism to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From this dimension, this study employed the ecological footprint of the 10 most visited countries (France, Spain, United States, China, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, and Thailand) over the period 1995–2016. Specifically, the study employed an econometric approach and found that increase in tourism arrivals and globalization is detrimental to the attainment of sustainable environmental quality in a long term. Precisely, a 1% increase in international arrivals and globalization is responsible for a 0.18 and 0.89% increase in ecological footprint in the long-run. These impacts of tourism activities and globalization are detrimental to the environmental quality of the destination countries. Meanwhile, the real income per capita and biocapacity in the destination countries improve the environmental quality of the panel of destination countries in the long-run. In addition, the study found significant evidence of Granger causality from tourism and real income to ecological footprint without feedback, the globalization-ecological footprint Granger causality nexus is with feedback. Moreover, potentially effective policies for government and other stakeholders especially toward attaining Global goals were proffered in the study.

The purpose of the study is to examine the adaptation of coal mining enterprises to the requirements of the Climate Agenda and the prospects for a low-carbon future of the Kuzbass region. The subject of the research is the impact of coal mining on the conservation of the region’s biocapacity and the future "green" development of Kuzbass on the basis of mine reclamation. The following tasks are tackled: 1. to show the role of mining enterprises in the movement of the region's economy towards a low-carbon future, 2. to determine the relationship between the coal production and the area of mined lands for the period 2013-2019, 3. to reveal the need to increase the mine reclamation rate and conserve the biodiversity of the region's ecosystem, 4. to forecast the growth of the area of mined land with an increase in coal production of more than 300 million tons, provided that the current socio-economic situation in the region remains unchanged. Research methods are elements of a systems approach, regression analysis, building a one-factor linear regression model using the IBM SPSS Statistics software.

This chapter employs a case study in an investigation of Costa Rica’s national Ecological Footprint and biocapacity. Sampling farmers in the Alexander Skutch Biological Corridor as the study area, this chapter relays the methods used, including surveys based on the Footprint Calculator with follow-up interviews. In this way, it is possible to discern the regional environmental performance of these farmers and learn from them (at household–regional levels) how to improve their environmental performance. This contributes to an understanding of cross-scalar variations in the environmental performance of the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity. It also allows for a critical approach to the Footprint Calculator used to survey at these scales based on the online survey.

This paper focuses on the quantitative assessment, on a local scale, of the environmental sustainability of agricultural activities. To compare the supply and demand of natural resources in a local agricultural system, a methodology based on the ecological footprint approach was adopted. The condition of (strong) sustainability of an agricultural system is established through an ecological balance where the availability of natural capital, expressed in terms of biocapacity (BC), is compared to its demand by agricultural activities, expressed as ecological footprint (EF). The viability of this methodology was tested in the agricultural area of Viterbo municipality (central Italy). The results of this study provide interesting points of departure for further research regarding the possibility of defining an agricultural production system as “sustainable” and of introducing a regional sustainability brand as a key for local development.

In this paper, we modeled the effects of income, agricultural innovation, energy utilization, and biocapacity on Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. We tested the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for Nigeria from 1981 to 2014. We applied the novel dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) simulations to develop conceptual tools for policy formulation. The empirical results confirmed the EKC hypothesis and found that agricultural innovation and energy utilization have an escalation effect on CO2 emissions whereas income and biocapacity have long-run emission-reduction effects. The causality results found agricultural innovation attributable to CO2 emissions and observed that income drives energy demand. Income, biocapacity, and energy utilization are found to predict changes in CO2 emissions. These results are validated by the innovation accounting techniques—wherein 22.79% of agricultural innovation corresponds to 49.43% CO2 emissions—5.95% of biocapacity has 35.78% attributable CO2 emissions—and 1.61% of energy spurs CO2 emissions by 16.27%. The policy implication for this study is that energy efficiency, clean energy utilization and sustainable ecosystem recovery and management are the surest ways to combat climate change and its impacts.

Ecological Footprint (EF) and Energy-Landscape Integrated Analysis (ELIA) estimate human societies’ imprint on nature. Both methods aim to provide overviews regarding biophysical society–nature interactions. The purposes of this article are to compare how EF and ELIA conceptualize human-nature relationships, and what results they produce when applied to the same landscape scale, in order to consider how their methodological similarities and differences can account for Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC). This conceptual comparison acknowledges the “ecocentric” perspective of EF adopted to relate end consumption baskets of human populations with the land biocapacities, and the “social metabolism” perspective of ELIA to take into account biophysical transformations and spatial distribution of matter-energy flows in different land uses. The two methods were applied to a case study of 46 municipalities in the Qazvin Province (Iran). These municipalities were grouped according to the values of the two methods by cluster analysis and correlated with landscape heterogeneity. The correlation analysis demonstrates that EF and ELIA indicators only overlap when landscape structure is highly simplified. However, lower accuracy of EF compared to ELIA as an indicator of socioecological impacts of different types of agricultural practices is confirmed. Although EF remains a useful indicator of unequal appropriation of Earth’s biocapacity, it does so by taking average patterns of food production and consumption as given. To distinguish environmentally friendly from degrading practices, more precise indicators at the landscape level such as ELIA are required for farmers, consumers and policymakers to choose more sustainable options in their decisions.

This study performs the augmented autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to investigate the impact of renewable energy and health expenditures on the load capacity factor in Japan and the United States of America (USA) over the period 1982–2016. The load capacity factor is obtained by dividing the biocapacity into the ecological footprint and provides a general picture of environmental quality. Thus, the study departs from the current literature by approaching environmental problems from a broader perspective. The results of this study confirm the existence of cointegration in the USA and Japan. The long-run estimates demonstrate that renewable energy and health expenditures improve environmental quality in the USA, while renewable energy has a positive but insignificant impact on load capacity factor in Japan. It has also been determined economic growth causes significant environmental degradation, which cannot be compensated by renewables and health expenditures in both countries. According to these findings, Japanese and American governments should promote green growth, support the increase in health expenditures, and diversify renewable energy sources to reduce environmental pressure.

We present an alternative approach to estimating the spatial footprint of energy consumption, as this represents a major fraction of the ecological footprint (EF). Rather than depicting the current lack of sustainability that comes from estimating a footprint based on uptake of carbon emissions (the method used in EF accounting), our proposed “Renewable Energy Equivalent Footprint” (REEF) instead depicts a hypothetical world in which the electricity and fuel demands are met entirely from renewable energy. The analysis shows that current human energy demands could theoretically be met by renewable energy and remain within the biocapacity of one planet. However, with current technology there is no margin to leave any biocapacity for nature, leading to the investigation of two additional scenarios: (1) radical electrification of the energy supply, assuming 75% of final energy demand can be met with electricity, and (2) adopting technology in which electricity is used to convert atmospheric gases into synthetic fuel. The REEF demonstrates that a sustainable and desirable future powered by renewable energy: (i) may be possible, depending on the worldwide adoption of consumption patterns typical of several key exemplar countries; (ii) is highly dependent on major future technological development, namely electrification and synthetic fuels; and (iii) is still likely to require appropriation of a substantial, albeit hopefully sustainable, fraction of the world’s forest area.

The economy of the United Arab Emirates has ranked 27th in the world for decades, which has supported its human development being rated highest among Arab nations. The country, however, has remained oblivious to its ecological deficit. This study explores sources of this deficit by analyzing three sets of data related to its economic growth, human development, and ecological deficit for 29 years from 1990 to 2019. The results of the data analyses indicate that although an increase in the country&rsquo, s GDP has a high positive correlation with the nation&rsquo, s human development, the indicator variables related to both measures have a significant reverse influence on the variability of the values for the 333country&rsquo, s ecological deficit. Validating the statistical results through interviews with ten authorities from various government ministries and the oil industry shows that, when considering the nation&rsquo, s finite biocapacity, the genesis of its ecological deficit lies in persistent developments that rely on petroleum revenues and the rapid influx of the millions of migrants who are needed to close the skill gaps of United Arab Emirates (UAE) citizens. Although initiatives to reduce the UAE&rsquo, s ecological footprint have been in place since 2007, the lack of environmental action plans, policies, and enforcing regulations have resulted in the nation&rsquo, s failure to move toward achieving sustainable development. This has pushed the country toward the brink of ecological bankruptcy.

As a global financial center and one of the world’s first-tier cities, Hong Kong is committed to sustainable development and it expects to become the most sustainable city in Asia. With this in mind, this paper evaluates the level of sustainable development in Hong Kong considering the factors of ecological footprint, biocapacity, and the human development index (HDI) from 1995 to 2016, in order to make policy recommendations for transforming Hong Kong into a more sustainable city. Between 1995 and 2016, a period during which the HDI rose, the per capita ecological footprint of Hong Kong increased from 4.842 gha to 6.223 gha. Moreover, fossil energy consumption had a crucial impact on the city’s ecological footprint, whereas the biocapacity of Hong Kong declined gradually. By contrast, Singapore, a city-state with an area similar to Hong Kong’s, presented the opposite situation—the HDI increased while the ecological footprint decreased. We performed a further comparative analysis and a SWOT analysis of Singapore and Hong Kong to elaborate on how to decouple the large ecological footprint from human society development. Concluding that the focus must be on energy consumption, reduction of the human activities’ negative impacts on marine environment, citizens and government, we provide policy suggestions for transforming toward a “high HDI and low footprint” sustainable development society in Hong Kong.

Estimates of footprint have rationalized the approach of environmental input-output assessments. In this study, the Ecological Footprint denotes the bioproductive area needed to sustain a population. We evaluated the living style standards of urbanized areas of Rawalpindi (i.e. Bahria Town and Gulraiz Colony) to calculate their Ecological Footprint. Comprehensive information was obtained from the population of these two areas by questionnaires and subsequent analysis using the Ecological Footprint calculator formulated by Redefined Progress. The Ecological Footprint of Bahria Town is 8.6 g ha (global hectares) and Gulraiz Colony is 6.9 g ha, which indicates that the urban population in these two areas are living a luxurious life style and consuming resources far more than the biocapacity of Pakistan. Another aspect that emerged from this study is that the biocapacity of Pakistan is unable to meet the needs of people due to population increase. Both Bahria Town and Gulraiz Colony have Ecological Footprints higher than national standard values, which illustrates that if all others lived like people in the studied areas then Pakistan's Ecological Footprints (4.7 g ha) would double and overpopulation will have further stress on the ecosystem. We propose maximum utilization of green resources and adaption of energy saving habits as immediate intervention measures to reduce the Ecological Footprint.

This paper is the second part of a two-paper series on framework development and application demonstration of the Inclusive Impact Index (Triple I), a single-index of sustainability assessment. This Part II aims to exemplify findings obtained from Part I, which developed a full-scale framework for estimation of Triple I, based on the current context of life cycle sustainability assessment. The entire life cycle of inedible vegetable oil-derived biodiesel production and use in cruise ships in Ha Long Bay, was used as a case study for the demonstration. Furthermore, this paper also examines the sustainable potential of several blends of Hibiscus sabdariffa L. (Roselle) and Vernicia montana L. (Trau) biodiesel. Consequently, implications for sustainable biodiesel policies in Quang Ninh Province have been introduced. Under Triple I, the sustainable potential of different biodiesel systems in Ha Long Bay was examined with respect to impacts on ecological footprint, biocapacity, ecosystem quality, human health and the economy. Several biodiesel-petroleum diesel blends were considered in this paper involving B5 (5% by volume (vol%) biodiesel), B10 (10 vol% biodiesel), B20 (20 vol% biodiesel) and B100 (neat biodiesel). Triple I gages the sustainability of all biodiesel blends as alternatives to petroleum diesel. The findings suggest that the application of B10 and B20 blends are most appropriate, as they were the most stable and equivalent in terms of economic, environmental and social impacts, particularly in the case of B20. Since B100 has considerably high sustainable potential but longer Triple I payback time compared to the three lower blends, this study proposes a consideration of B20 and B10 for short-term and B100 for long-term biodiesel application pathways. Results of Triple I are in line with previous studies, and this confirms the precision of Triple I as a sustainability assessment index. On the other hand, by quantitatively revealing what and how an individual factor and its changes can affect the sustainability of a biodiesel system, Triple I has proved its superiority to other indexes. Nevertheless, due to the absence of social impacts in the Triple I estimation, this study recommended for a further development of the Triple I framework to contemplate evaluating social aspects.

Land-use change is a crucial driver for achieving a sustainable future. However, the uncertainties of socioeconomic development could lead to different changes in the future land-use patterns. Using a spatial downscaling framework, this study aims to explore possible land-use patterns that can help achieve sustainable development in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, China (the Greater Bay Area). The framework combines the global Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios with local land planning policies to model land-use changes. First, the Land Change Modeler was used to analyze the land-use changes from 2000 to 2010 and build transition potential submodels each of which demonstrates transition potential of different land-use classes. Second, future projections were made for the “business-as-usual” scenario and five localized SSP scenarios that were downscaled from global scenarios and modified based on the local land planning policy. Hong Kong was considered a typical case in the Greater Bay Area that could be used to demonstrate the application of the projected land-use maps by comparing the biocapacity and ecological footprint and estimating the carbon emissions associated with land use. The results of the future projections of land use made under six future scenarios indicated that there is a significant expansion in the urban area under all the scenarios, with varying degrees of decrease in cropland and forest among the different scenarios. Moreover, a land-use change also led to the change in local biocapacity and carbon emissions. Our analysis indicated that in achieving sustainable development not only urban area and cropland should be involved for consideration but should also cover the balance between all land-use classes, and three policy implications were proposed based on our findings.

Sustainability of vegetable oil-based biodiesel has been a controversial issue since its invention as an alternative to conventional diesel. In this study, the Inclusive Impact Index (Triple I) is applied to evaluate the trade-off between advantages and disadvantages of the biodiesel system. Triple I is a single quantitative index for sustainability assessment, which is based on ecological footprint (EF), biocapacity (BC), ecological risk (ER), human risk (HR), cost (C) and benefit (B) under the life cycle (LC) approach. Due to the lack of appropriate guidelines for calculation, the application of Triple I is varied and limited. With respect to contribution to sustainability assessment of renewable energy for transportation, this study aims to propose a methodical estimation of Triple I by integrating its current principles within the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) framework. The entire study is presented in two parts: Part I identifies and describes the methodological framework of the Triple I - LCSA integration, whilst Part II involves assumed exemplifications on the application of the Triple I framework attached with the case study of an inedible vegetable oil-based biodiesel system in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. In the first part, an integration framework of the Triple I and LCSA was developed. Accordingly, human health impacts (DALY person−1) and ecosystem quality impacts (PDF m−2 year−1) from IMPACT 2002+ and Lethal/Effective Concentration (LC/EC) (under ecotoxicity assessment) are adopted as HR and ER in Triple I, respectively. Life cycle-based EF and life cycle costing are used for EF and C and B, respectively. Under the newly developed framework, ecosystem impacts and human health impacts are firstly converted to a monetary value, then to global hectares in line with cost and benefit values. Following the success developed in the Triple I framework, this work introduces to the sustainable assessment community, especially the transportation sector, a convenient and easy-to-apply quantitative index. Furthermore, this paper also summarizes several state-of-art life cycle assessment techniques and provides brief information about biodiesel life cycle inventories and some potential impacts of the system.

As with concerns of increasing environmental degradation, research on environmental sustainability is growing in importance. The Ecological Footprint (EF) metric is a resource accounting tool that is widely applied in analyzing sustainable development. This paper was set to assess the overall robustness of EF for sustainability decision-making and discuss proposed changes for improvement of EF as a sustainability indicator. Although EF is advantageous over other methodologies for sustainability analysis with a quantifiable index, it still shows limitations for analyzing certain critical environmental issues such as excessive land use, renewable resource depletion as well as inaccurate measurement of carbon footprint, which is the most important component of EF. Proposed improvements to EF accounting to make a robust indicator and enable a reliable assessment to support sustainable development include the introduction of a correction factor for biocapacity measurement, which facilitates the moderate use of productive lands to limit land degradation. Moreover, the development of a three-dimensional ecological footprint model assists the differentiation of resource stocks from resource flows to help mitigate resource depletion. Furthermore, a modified carbon footprint measurement improves the accuracy of the EF value. Current applications of the improved EF methodologies are also discussed.

More and more literature have been researching subjective well-being from the perspective of natural capital. By employing a biological proxy of renewable natural capital, the Biocapacity, this paper aims to add to the growing literature by empirically estimating the relationship between renewable natural capital and subjective well-being. Based on a cross-sectional data set of 139 countries around the year 2013, the Ordinary Least Square regression estimations demonstrate that renewable natural capital has a significant positive impact on subjective well-being. A sensitivity analysis by employing another proxy of subjective well-being further certifies the significant positive relationship between renewable natural capital and subjective well-being. The respective regression estimations for the high-income countries (including 77 countries) and the low-income countries (including 62 countries) show that the relationship is also significantly positive for the high-income countries whereas statistically insignificant for the low-income countries. The empirical findings of this paper further prove that renewable natural capital serves as an independent factor in affecting and explaining national subjective well-being levels and that residents do consider the ecosystem goods and services generated from renewable natural capital when they evaluate their life conditions, especially for those who have reached a certain level of living standard.

Based on the national greenhouse gas emission reduction target for 2030 (“GHG target for 2030″) and the 2nd Energy Master Plan (“2nd EMP”), several power mix configuration scenarios were tested to estimate the sensitivity of the carbon dioxide emissions and the ‘overshoot ratio’, which is the ratio of ecological footprint to biocapacity. It would be only possible to achieve the GHG target for 2030 if the fraction of non-emission energy be more than 70% of the total input primary energy for power generation with the current conversion efficiency (40%). Even the conversion efficiency is changed to 50%, still the carbon dioxide emissions are larger than the targeted carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector. The overshoot ratio would still increase from 5.9 in 2009 to 7.6 in 2035 even with the successful implementation of the 2nd EMP. Thus, additional efforts to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and the overshoot ratio from the energy sector are required beyond adjusting the supply mix configuration for power generation and the conversion efficiency. Policies and programs encouraging the changes in consumer behavior toward reduction of goods consumption and energy savings are expected to impact on reducing the carbon dioxide emissions and the overshoot ratio.

Farmers' cultivation choices affect the natural cycles of crops and impact their production. By assessing the farming activities, as influenced by crop types, land suitability and cultivation choices, the effectiveness of agricultural practices in terms of environmental impact can be evaluated. The study of the relationships between agriculture, environment and economic performance should be deepened, by considering the connection between agricultural activities and the use of natural resources beyond the economic issues, which are often taken as the unique or, at least, the main goal of human activities. The aim of this paper is to assess and to analyse in a comparative way the environmental and economic results of a crop production system at farm level. The methodology for the evaluation of environmental performance is based on a modified version of the Ecological Footprint account, used to measure the demand for natural resources linked to the farm's operations, which is compared with the Biocapacity of the crop system itself. The economic performances are assessed by means of crops' analytical budgets. The results provided by the case study analysis show that the considered farm cropping system reports an overall positive ecological balance (+ 2.4 gha) together with an acceptable gross margin (16,200 €). It emerges that crops with negative environmental performances sustain farm income, while the crops with a positive ecological balance bring a very limited contribution to economic profitability. Such results lead to some considerations about the importance of carefully considering the trade-off between economic and environmental consequences of farming activities in order to drive farmers towards a more sustainable behaviour.

Food production, consumption, ecological footprint of foodstuffs (foodprint), biocapacity, and ecological deficit of Iran for the period of 1991–2013 were evaluated and the trend toward the year 2025 was estimated. Total food production and consumption for 2012–2013 were 89.5 and 94.5 million tons with a self-sufficiency coefficient of 0.87. The ecological footprint for the country is 2.8 global hectare (Gha) and foodprint is 0.88 Gha per person with an increase of 3.3 and 2.9% per year up, respectively, to the year 2025, reaching values of 3.34 and 1.05 Gha per person. Biocapacity of the country is estimated as 0.82 Gha per person with an ecological deficit of 0.9 Gha with a predicted value of 2.5 Gha for the year 2025. The balance between consumption and national food production as well as foodprint was analyzed under 4 scenarios differing in the amount of consumption of meat and dairy products. In all scenarios with increasing consumption of animal products, the unbalanced relation of consumpti...

Driven by unprecedented economic development for more than three decades, China's urbanization level rose from 17.9% in 1978 to 54.8% in 2014. This breakneck speed of urbanization has resulted in myriad environmental problems and social inequities. To gauge the urban sustainability of China, our study focused on ten megacities which are socioeconomic centers of the country. We evaluated the three dimensions of sustainability using a set of sustainability indicators, including Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), Ecological Footprint (EF), Biocapacity, Environmental Performance Index (EPI), City Development Index (CDI), Human Development Index (HDI), Gini coefficient, and Urban–rural income ratio. Based on time-series data from 1978 to 2012, our study has produced the following findings: (1) The values of GPI for the ten megacities started to increase since 2006 after a relatively constant period between 1994 and 2005; (2) The pressures of economic growth on the environment (EF) increased while biocapacity decreased for the ten megacities, with smaller biocapacity deficits for western cities; (3) The overall level of human wellbeing (HDI) increased; (4) Socioeconomic inequality (Gini and urban–rural income ratio) widened, but the widening trend seemed to have ceased in recent years for most of the ten megacities; and (5) Certain aspects of urban environment and city development (EPI and CDI) improved gradually, particularly in waste treatment and infrastructure development. Our findings suggest that, to achieve overall urban sustainability, China must move away from maximizing economic development and focus on improving environmental quality of its megacities.

The economic activities of man. The increase in the volume of emissions in atmosphere. The rise of global temperature. The biocapacity of the Earth. Ecological footprint. Ecological debt. Renewable sources of energy as a tool for increasing the capital of nature. A united energy market from fossil sources and renewable sources. Transformation of an economy to low energy and low emission technologies for manufacturing and to ecologically clean manufacturing products. The reaction of world science in the field of technology in architecture. Climate defined by physical and chemical parameters. Green architecture. Strategic fields for saving or rational utilization of green buildings – material, energy and water resources. Trends in the application of green building in the field of materials (to ecologically clean materials and the ecological manufacturing of materials), in the field of energy (to ecologically clean resources and ecological energy conversion) and in the field of water (to ecologically clean natural resources and their ecological protection). Sustainable development of society. Green building, process of creating the design and structure of the project ́s strategy. Basic structure of the strategy defining the principles and concepts of green building. Internal structure of the strategy emphasizing the principles and concepts of green building.

The comparison of the Ecological Footprint and its counterpart (i.e. biocapacity) allow for a classification of the world's countries as ecological creditors (Ecological Footprint lower than biocapacity) or debtors (Ecological Footprint higher than biocapacity). This classification is a national scale assessment on an annual time scale that provides a view of the ecological assets appropriated by the local population versus the natural ecological endowment of a country. We show that GDP per capita over a certain threshold is related with the worsening of the footprint balance in countries classified as ecological debtors. On the other hand, this correlation is lost when ecological creditor nations are considered. There is evidence that governments and investors from high GDP countries are playing a crucial role in impacting the environment at the global scale which is significantly affecting the geography of sustainability and preventing equal opportunities for development. In particular, international market dynamics and the concentration of economic power facilitate the transfer of biocapacity related to "land grabbing", i.e. large scale acquisition of agricultural land. This transfer mainly occurs from low to high GDP countries, regardless of the actual need of foreign biocapacity, as expressed by the national footprint balance. A first estimation of the amount of biocapacity involved in this phenomenon is provided in this paper in order to better understand its implications on global sustainability and national and international land use policy. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Participatory ecosystem services scenarios can be used to inform decision making on the sustainable or wise use of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES). To establish the plausibility and coherency of the recently constructed Biscay participatory scenarios, and to analyze policy options for improving sustainability of land use and the supply of ecosystem services, a spatially explicit analysis of land cover change was carried out. The modelling used an innovative methodology which included feedback from key stakeholders. Our study showed that scenario mapping can be a way of testing the credibility and internal consistency of scenarios, and a methodology for making them more coherent; it was also useful for highlighting land use trade-offs. The sustainability analysis for the ES supply side showed the benefits of promoting two land use/cover trends in the Biscay region: (i) an increase of sustainable arable land in the valley zones to reinforce biocapacity and self-provisioning while preserving agroecosystems’ ES flow; and (ii) natural forest regeneration in mountainous and other zones to increase carbon storage and sequestration while enhancing biodiversity and other ES flows. We argue that even if already protected public agro-forest lands may be the best places to start promoting these changes, additional measures are needed to involve private landowners and guarantee changes at a landscape level. Finally, we reflect on the need to make complementary analyses of ES supply and demand as a way of contributing to a broad sustainability agenda.

The ecological footprint (EF) is an important tool for regional ecological security assessments. Based on the renewable EF components that meet the basic biomass needs of mankind, we evaluated the ecological security status of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (Great Bay Area) in 2000 and 2015 from two aspects: ecological health and ecological risk. The results were as follows. (1) The renewable biocapacity and the renewable EF have increased. The difference in the renewable EF structure between the urban and rural areas has nearly disappeared. Ecological consumption was concentrated in cities with a high flow of people, materials, and tourism. (2) The renewable biocapacity per hectare was high and increasing. The effective carrying rate varied greatly from city to city and was generally declining. The level of health in the Greater Bay Area has changed from healthy to unhealthy. (3) The renewable ecological deficit and the renewable ecological pressure have increased, and the ecological risks are further expanding. The increase in the number of cities above the high-risk level means more hotspot targets for ecological risk management. (4) The ecological security status of the Greater Bay Area has changed from relatively unsafe and weakly unsustainable to unsafe and strongly unsustainable. There is a need to protect natural assets, reduce ecological consumption, and improve the ecological security and sustainability of the study area.

[...]as scientists and citizens, we need to ask ourselves: what should researchers, including those publishing in GAIA, offer if they want to help turn her "door-opening" into a lasting shift towards the transition humanity needs? [...]if Greta and her generation read GAIA, what articles would you submit? GAIA 29/2:79-82, in this issue. 3 For instance, in the 2019 special issue on Sustainable Economy: Perspectives of Change I could not find any reference to the speed and scale of change that is needed for maintaining the biosphere healthy and hospitable, let alone in ways that advance more dignity and wellbeing for all. 4 Global Footprint Network. 2019 edition of the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts. data.footprintnetwork.org (accessed June 23, 2020).

The ecological footprint has far surpassed the biocapacity of our globe to fulfill the current requirement of the people living on the earth which needs sustainable vision with synergic alternative/option to meet the current human demand without compromising the need for the future generation. We examined the various SDGs goals with respect to agroforestry capacity and contribution based on available literature and knowledge. The study provides a better understanding of the synergic approach/strategies with retrospective and prospective ways for choosing agroforestry exercise which is an effective mechanism for providing multi-dimensional ecosystem services without interruption in achieving the majority of SDGs goals. The outcome of the evaluation highlights that agroforestry can contribute very significantly and can play a vital role in SDG-1, SDG-2, SDG-11, SDG-13, and SDG-15 directly in mitigating poverty, contributing towards food security, improving in creating a viable healthy city and in providing a sustainable overall prosperous environment in the prevailing climate change setup whereas indirectly it can serve others SDGs goals simultaneously that aim to provide better health and education, women empowerment, effective contribution towards clean water and energy for all sections of the society/citizen. The analysis further concluded although agroforestry has a vibrant future and hope it will get adequate priority in various countries with a focus on policy and investment.

Bioeconomy comprises a novel approach towards economic development in the European Union (EU). Its development should be confined by the planetary boundaries (biocapacity). We integrate the land footprint approach related to production and land biocapacity to assess the trends in capacity and productivity of bioeconomy in the EU countries throughout 1997–2013. Results show that the level of production-based land footprint and land biocapacity vary across the EU countries. However, Belgium is the sole case where production-based land footprint exceeds land biocapacity. The highest possibilities for development of the bioeconomy sector are observed for Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Slovakia. Meanwhile, Estonia, Denmark and the United Kingdom have almost achieved the level of land biocapacity. Considering the catch up growth rate, almost all of the EU countries (with exception of Greece, France, Italy and Romania) show increasing footprint-to-biocapacity ratios with the highest values for Estonia and Latvia. The significant absolute decoupling between production-based land footprint and agricultural value added is observed in Denmark. Meanwhile, Italy, Lithuania and Spain show relative decoupling. Thus, these countries should pay particular attention to productivity improvements in forestry and agriculture. This study contributes to setting the targets for bioeconomy policy that can support the sustainable and efficient use of biological resources.

The unsustainable use of our planet's resources needs to be tackled from different angles and multiple levels of governance. As the human population urbanizes, having access to reliable, cross-cutting, quantitative city-level sustainability metrics is key to understanding the environmental impacts of urban dwellers and the role cities can play in the 21st century sustainability challenge. Framing the environmental pillar of urban sustainability with an overarching metric like the Ecological Footprint informs stakeholders and citizens about a city's overall pressure on the biosphere. In Portugal, six cities established a pioneering collaborative project to guide their transition to sustainability and support city governance; this paper presents the results of the first phase of the project. We tracked annual demand for natural resources and ecological services by the city residents and compared it against the “carrying capacity” of the cities' ecological assets. We then assessed the ability of this new data to increase local environmental awareness and support local public policies in Portugal and elsewhere. Lessons from this study inform the ongoing debate on the Ecological Footprint's usefulness as sustainability metric for cities, and point to specific policy insights for managing key consumption sectors and reaching key targets such as the UN SDGs.

Pre-Western-contact Hawai&lsquo, i stands as a quintessential example of a large human population that practiced intensive agriculture, yet minimally affected native habitats that comprised the foundation of its vitality. An explicit geospatial footprint of human-transformed areas across the pre-contact Hawaiian archipelago comprised less than 15% of total land area, yet provided 100% of human needs, supporting a thriving Polynesian society. A post-contact history of disruption of traditional land use and its supplanting by Western land tenure and agriculture culminated in a landscape less than 250 years later in which over 50% of native habitats have been lost, while self-sufficiency has plummeted to 15% or less. Recapturing the &lsquo, āina momona (productive lands) of ancient times through biocultural restoration can be accomplished through study of pre-contact agriculture, assessment of biological and ecological changes on Hawaiian social-ecological systems, and conscious planned efforts to increase self-sufficiency and reduce importation. Impediments include the current tourism-based economy, competition from habitat-modifying introduced species, a suite of agricultural pests severely limiting traditional agriculture, and climate changes rendering some pre-contact agricultural centers suboptimal. Modified methods will be required to counteract these limitations, enhance biosecurity, and diversify agriculture, without further degrading native habitats, and recapture a reciprocal Hawaiian human-nature relationship.

Ecological Footprint accounting quantifies the supply and demand of Earth&rsquo, s biocapacity. The National Footprint Accounts (NFA) are the most widely used Ecological Footprint (EF) dataset, and provide results for most countries and the world from 1961 to 2014, based primarily on publicly available UN datasets. Here, we review the evolution of the NFA, describe and quantify the effects of improvements that have been implemented into the accounts since the 2012 edition, and review the latest global trends. Comparing results over six editions of NFAs, we find that time-series trends in world results remain stable, and that the world Ecological Footprint for the latest common year (2008) has increased six percent after four major accounting improvements and more than thirty minor improvements. The latest results from the NFA 2018 Edition for the year 2014 indicate that humanity&rsquo, s Ecological Footprint is 1.7 Earths, and that global ecological overshoot continues to grow. While improved management practices and increased agricultural yields have assisted in a steady increase of Earth&rsquo, s biocapacity since 1961, humanity&rsquo, s Ecological Footprint continues to increase at a faster pace than global biocapacity, particularly in Asia, where the total and per capita Ecological Footprint are increasing faster than all other regions.

In the context of global ecological overload, international trade has become one of the most important ways to make up for the ecological deficit. This study takes the “Belt and Road” Initiative as the study area to analyze the biocapacity and ecological footprint characteristics between China and other countries along the “Belt and Road” Initiative. Trade flow characteristics were explored from the perspective of biocapacity. The import and export of virtual land was used to assess the effect of trade on compensating for the resource gaps in crop and grazing land. The main results show that: 1) In 2005–2014, the majority of “Belt and Road” countries were experiencing increasing degrees of overload. In China, cropland takes up the largest proportion of biocapacity, while the ecological footprint is dominated by the carbon footprint. 2) The trade flow of agricultural and livestock products in the mainland of China shows a trend of increasing imports and decreasing exports, which increases dependence on specific regions. 3) In 2005–2014, China's trade in cereals and oil crops along the “Belt and Road” Initiative were generally net imports, and the share of cereals traded along the “Belt and Road” Initiative is increasing gradually, but that of oil crops decreased rapidly. 4) The import trade has alleviated ecological deficit, as the selected products compensated for 1.03 times of the cropland deficit and 0.65 times of the grazing land deficit in China. This study is helpful to understand the relationship between the land use and trade deeply, and provide decision-making references for reducing ecological deficits, optimizing land resource allocation, and promoting win–win cooperation among China and other countries in the “Belt and Road” Initiative.

Economy has changed significantly over the past century, in part due to the scientific discoveries, due to the industrial revolution, to the research, development and innovation, but maybe the most important contributor to the economic development is the human resource. We have witnessed significant changes enhancing the levels of productivity, both labor and capital. This paper analyzes productivity in relation to its social and sustainability dimension. The paper follows a previous study, highlighting the most important findings identified and reinterpreting them on the basis of the most recent research papers produced by the scholars in the field. The analysis is focused on the most unsustainable economies worldwide, respectively, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Belgium, Kuwait, Singapore, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Macedonia, Japan and the United States of America – selected by considering their per capita ecological deficit. The research uses statistical data provided by the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank and the Global Footprint Network. The research combines economical, development and environmental indexes in our attempt to evaluate productivity and to adjust it so that it considers the ecological deficit of the nations. The research hypothesis that generated the study is: the levels of economic productivity obtained by countries are not limited by their biocapacities. The empirical analysis will verify the research question advocating for the need to consider the limited capacity of the planet, in term of natural resources, when promoting economic and social development.

One of the possible approaches to assess the level of the sustainable development is to combine the Footprint Indicators, allowing also for the available biocapacity, with the Human Development Indicators. This approach was used to assess the sustainable development path of the European Union (EU) and its countries. The EU countries achieving the higher levels of the human development also show the higher levels of the Ecological Footprint. However, the characteristics of the economies are different, especially those determining the Ecological Footprint and some outliers in the group can be found. The relations between the human development and the available biocapacity are not so straightforward. Allowing for inequality as regards the level of human development, the social dimension of the sustainable development shows significant losses in several developed countries.

Ecological Footprint accounting is used to track human demand on the Earth's biological resource flows, and compares that demand with the Earth's capacity to generate these flows. It is an evolving tool which has undergone many improvements alongside advancements in science and in response to critical review. Here we respond to van den Bergh and Grazi's recent points of criticism toward Ecological Footprint accounting. While the authors suggest that new criticism is accumulating, the main issues appear to be the same. We suggest that the majority of the criticism is derived from the misconception that the Ecological Footprint measures land “use,” which cannot exceed land availability. In response to these criticisms, we aim here to summarize and further clarify the major points of debate and confusion and allow readers to determine the relevance of these issues. We conclude that much of the prior discussion and many of the points repeated here reflect a divergence in general philosophical or semantic perspectives.

Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) is appealing as a metric of sustainability because it is straightforward in theory and easy to conceptualize. However, EFA is difficult to implement because it requires extensive data. A simplified approach to EFA that requires fewer data can serve as a perfunctory analysis allowing researchers to examine a system with relatively little cost and effort. We examined whether a simplified approach using freely available data could be applied to Puerto Rico, a densely populated island with limited land resources. Forty-one years of data were assembled to compute the ecological footprint from 1970 to 2010. According to EFA, individuals in Puerto Rico were moving toward sustainability over time, as the per capita ecological footprint decreased from 3.69 ha per capita (ha/ca) in 1970 to 3.05 ha/ca in 2010. However, due to population growth, the population’s footprint rose from 1.00 × 10 7 ha in 1970 to 1.14 × 10 7 ha in 2010, indicating Puerto Rico as a whole was moving away from sustainability. Our findings demonstrate the promise for conducting EFA using a simplified approach with freely available data, and we discuss potential limitations on data quality and availability that should be addressed to further improve the science.