Ecological footprints provide a way to systematically measure the area of the Earth needed to sustain a nation’s annual consumption patterns. Food, fossil fuels, paper, and ever other good or service generates a footprint. Footprint size varies depending on how goods are made and how much we consume. If a nation’s footprint exceeds its biocapacity, it is said to be engaging in ecological overshoot. Nearly 50% of countries in our Footprint of Nations 2005 update exhibited a sustainable footprint, while the remaining sixty-nine countries' footprint resulted in a net overshoot of their biocapacity.

A nation's footprint is calculated by adding the footprint attributable to imports and subtracting the footprint of exports from domestic production: Total footprint = production footprint + imports footprint – exports footprint. This is computed for 72 product categories such as grains, timber, coal, oil, and cotton. This figure is divided by yield factors to calculate the footprint. A nation’s footprint can be compared to the global average to provide perspective.

The time series data provided on this site were generated using Footprint 2.0 (the latest approach to footprinting developed by RP's Sustainability Indicators staff in tandem with academic expert reviewers). Although the new protocol is still evolving, we are making these data sets available now in the spirit of open scientific inquiry and welcome your feedback on their accuracy and usefulness.  All figures are expressed in global hectares per capita (2001 data).