PowerSwitch

From WWF-UK: "Ecological Footprint results for each local authority area ... are now freely available for every local authority area via
http://www.wwflearning.org.uk/ecobudget ... uthorities (the WWF Website) eg

www.sei.se/reap (Stockholm Environment Institute - REsource Accounting Programme)
click on local
next page click on download
next page register
next page choose region

Ecological Footprint is a tool that measures our natural resource consumption and our global environmental impact."

> From the report:
>
> "The Ecological Footprint of the UK is 5.4 global hectares per person. This is 65% higher than our ecological budget and the UK has an Ecological
Footprint among the highest 15 countries on a per person basis."
...
eg Birmingham is average for the UK, with an EcoFootprint of 5.3
hectares per person.

"o The food sector [is] 21% of the Ecological Footprint (EF).
There is great scope for localising food production, reducing energy intensive processing and meat content... link a healthy eating campaign and ... two important dimensions of sustainability are being addressed.

o Household energy consumption is ... 20% ... the technological potential
for almost zero energy buildings exists, [but] achieving it depends on
lifestyles and institutions (for instance, the problem of split responsibilities between landlord, utilities and tenants)
o Manufactured [goods] contribute ... 10% ...[with] opportunities for demand management, supply chain management, process efficiency and localised production.
o The transport sector is ... 13%."

I just checked out my local authority EF and was unpleasantly surprised to see that it is 6.27 gha per person - the national average in the UK is 5.4 gha and the available land per person is 1.8gha.
I can't help feeling that these results should be sent, in an easily digestible format, to all the households in the district, together with suggestions to reduce consumption. Though I can see why my local council doesn't want to publicise its score!

I've been looking at ecological footprinting as part of an OU course that I'm taking. Most of the people (make that all of the people) that I spoke to about it had not heard of EF.
If people are to understand about reducing energy and resource consumption to sustainable levels, EF could play an important role as an educational tool. Some councils are already acting to address issues raised by the EF analysis but I think that residents need to be made aware of the impact of their activities on the environment and footprinting provides people with a 'snapshot' of their consumption levels, broken down into categories such as shopping, transport, waste and water use.

I suppose at a domestic level councils could offer a financial incentive to people if they complete and return an EF survey, if nothing else it might begin to raise the general awareness of the population re resource depletion and sustainability issues.