Ecological  Footprint
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What does and doesn t the ecological footprint contain?

The ecological footprint calculation concept means the regenerative capacity of the biosphere, which is really essential for life as natural capital. Critical components ("life-supporting services") of the natural capital are more important than the minerals in the envelope, which can be used for industrial purposes. Therefore, the usage of the area ("footprint"), as the - critical - measure of natural resource, is based on the fact that the majority of essential ecological services are taking place on that part of the world where the photosynthesis also takes part.

The ecological footprint includes the non- renewable resources only to such an extent as they are exploiting the regenerative capacity of the Earth, so the energy used for their mining and processing and the absorption of waste materials used during their usage is accounted as footprint. The footprint calculation omits certain loads, the data of which are missing, for example water extraction or emission of - toxic - waste materials except carbon- dioxide. (It means that the ecological footprint calculation under- estimates the effects of a group of people!) To be more precise, it omits on a direct way, but the biocapacity (as supply) might decrease if the different areas get contaminated, became unacceptable for growing due to increasing emission and over- usage of water. As a result of this, when the "supply and demand" is compared, these factors might have an effect on the supply side and might increase the rate of ecological deficit.

Limits of application:the ecological footprint is a "snapshot", which shows the natural resource demand of the population only for the given moment, but does not show the "future". With regular (annual) calculations proper information on time data and on distribution of the components can be gained. The most important limitation, which shall always be considered, is, that the ecological footprint as a biophysical measure, does not evaluate the social and economic dimensions of sustainability, although they are also essential. On its own it is not suitable for measuring sustainability: it is a necessary but not the only part in monitoring whether the population uses the natural capital within the renewal capacity limits, but does not take the social dimensions into consideration. For indicating the sustainability there is no one, aggregated indicator, not even the ecological footprint attempts this, it can not be interpreted like this.

 
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