High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Friday, October 30, 2009
Ecological Footprint
The ecological footprint is defined as a measure of how much biologically productive land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates using prevailing technology and resource management practices.
As with most developed countries of the world, the ecological footprint of Scotland is greater than the land used or emissions generated within the country's boundary. Growing demand is most often satisfied by an increase in imports, this means that the ecological footprint has been increasing, whilst domestic impacts have remained relatively stable or decreased.
The Scottish Government established a National Indicator to reduce the overall ecological footprint. In 2006 Scotland's ecological footprint was calculated as 4.8 global hectares per person, this is in comparison to a world-wide availability of 2.1 global hectares per person. This means that Scotland is proportionally consuming beyond the capacity of the earth's biosphere to provide services and to regenerate.
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Source: Stockholm Environment Institute (Scottish Government, 2009)
Between 1992 and 2006, there was a 14% increase in the per capita ecological footprint. Changes between 1992 and 2006 are not significant at the 95% confidence level.
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