Elsevier

Environmental Science & Policy

Volume 48, April 2015, Pages 210-224
Environmental Science & Policy

On the rationale and policy usefulness of Ecological Footprint Accounting: The case of Morocco

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.01.008Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • The role of Ecological Footprint in informing the policy making process is discussed.

  • Ecological Footprint value-added is highlighting resource trade-offs among human activities.

  • Footprint is most informative in the ‘early warning’ and ‘monitoring’ steps of the policy cycle.

Abstract

Ecological Footprint and biocapacity metrics have been widely used in natural capital and ecosystem accounting, and are frequently cited in the sustainability debate. Given their potential role as metrics for environmental science and policy, a critical scrutiny is needed. Moreover, these metrics remain unclear to many, are subject to criticisms, and discussion continues regarding their policy relevance. This paper aims to explain the rationale behind Ecological Footprint Accounting (EFA) and help ensure that Ecological Footprint and biocapacity results are properly interpreted and effectively used in evaluating risks and developing policy recommendations. The conclusion of this paper is that the main value-added of Ecological Footprint Accounting is highlighting trade-offs between human activities by providing both a final aggregate indicator and an accounting framework that shed light on the relationships between many of the anthropogenic drivers that contribute to ecological overshoot.

Keywords

Ecological Footprint
Sustainability indicators
Policy cycle
Policy making
Decision-making

Cited by (0)