Ecological Footprint
Before the Byw Sir Gâr / Living Carmarthenshire campaign took place in Ferryside, we wanted to work out the Ecological Footprint of the residents.
What is the Ecological Footprint?
Every individual, household, business, community and, ultimately, every country consumes resources.
The Ecological footprint (EF) measures the amount of resources we use compared with what is available in the world, and is a way of estimating whether we are living within the earth’s limits. It measures how much land, air and water that is needed to support our lifestyles in terms of what we consume (raw materials, energy, food) and produce (waste, pollution). It is measured in global hectares (gha) and is expressed as a per person measure (gha/capita).
The ecological footprint has a global reach, and the exercise will measure the “environmental burden” that residents in Ferryside place on the planet.
Did you know?
The average Ecological Footprint for people in Wales and Carmarthenshire is 5 gha/capita – this means that every man, woman and child uses the equivalent of 5 rugby pitches (every year) to produce the resources they consume.
Our “fair earthshare” is only 1.88 gha/capita (equivalent to almost 2 pitches), so a Footprint of 5 gha/capita means that we need close to three planets to support our current lifestyles!!
The components of Carmarthenshire’s ecological footprint that demand the greatest use of natural resources are housing (21%), transport (21%), food and drink (27%, and consumables (clothing and appliances – 12%).
Ferryside’s Footprint
In October (2009) we sent the Ecological Footprint questionnaire (click link to open) to 270 households in the village, and received 107 responses (40%).
From this we were able to calculate that the average Ecological Footprint of residents in Ferryside is 2.9 planets (similar to the national average), and that on average this was broken down into:
| Food % |
Travel % |
Home % |
Stuff % |
| 16 |
26 |
28 |
30 |
From the data, we were also able to calculate their Carbon footprint - which is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted (in tonnes per annum) and the average was 13 tonnes (which again is the same as the Welsh average).
During the “Living Carmarthenshire / Byw Sir Gâr” campaign residents shared ideas to help them reduce their footprint.
For further tips or advice please visit:
http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/
http://www.footprintwales.org/
http://www.walescarbonfootprint.gov.uk