Think of your ecological footprint as the “space” you need on Earth to live your life. This includes everything you use—food, water, energy and even waste, the stuff you throw away. It’s like measuring your personal impact on the planet. Or, in other words how much nature do you need to live the way you do?
The larger your ecological footprint, the more natural resources you’re consuming to support your lifestyle.
Countries with higher living standards generally have larger footprints due to more intensive consumption and energy use.
Key Reasons Ecological Footprints Increase
A country’s ecological footprint grows quickly when its economy industrializes, population rises, or people consume more goods.
Industrial development increases energy use and raw material consumption. More people → more food, energy, and waste. Higher living standards also drive demand for resource-heavy products. These factors combine to expand a nation’s impact on the environment.
Rising Living Standards → wealth increases → more cars, bigger homes, higher electricity use → for example, the UAE’s per capita ecological footprint is among the world’s highest due to intense energy needs for air conditioning in extreme heat and large-scale desalination plants supplying fresh water. Before 2010, the country ranked among the top 10 largest ecological footprints globally, but government intervention helped reduce it
Industrialisation → rapid economic growth and factory expansion → surge in fossil fuel consumption and industrial pollution
For example, China’s ecological footprint grew massively post-2000, with coal consumption doubling from 2000 to 2020
Urban Sprawl → cities expand with low-density housing → increase car use
For example, Houston ranks 11th in the U.S. for per capita greenhouse gas emissions, with a significant contribution from sprawling suburbs. Greater reliance on personal vehicles and increased transportation emissions per person meant higher per capita emissions compared to Tokyo, where compact living and extensive public transit keep its ecological footprint lower.
Per Capita CO₂ emissions approx 11.5 tons VS Japan 8.7 tons
From 1997-2016, it added concrete surfaces larger than the size of New York City OR larger than the land area of the cities of Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington D.C. combined
P.S The exam content in these posts is stripped down to the bare minimum for quick revision. Full notes are based directly on past IB exam questions, with detailed case studies and at least three exam-ready points per topic—available [here].
Read here for more on Water-Food-Nexus
Read here for more on Malthus v Boserup
See rest of Unit 3 for more on resource security