If all human inhabitants on this planet live like the Irish, 21 April, 2022 was Ireland’s Earth Overshoot Day this year, according to the Global Footprint Network.
The core of Global Footprint Network is the Ecological Footprint, a comprehensive sustainability metric designed to assist decision-makers to steer the human economy towards operating within the Earth’s ecological limits. Earth Overshoot Day is the day when humanity will have used nature’s resource budget for 2022 and consumption for the remainder of the year wouldn’t be sustainable.
It was created by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees in the early 1990s as a part of Wackernagel’s PhD research at the University of British Columbia. Over the years, the Ecological Footprint concept has grown to become a household phrase worldwide. And the term “footprint” has become synonymous with human behaviour and its impact.
The calculation is achieved by dividing the planet’s biocapacity, or the quantity of ecological resources the Earth is able to generate in a given year, by humanity’s ecological footprint, or demand, for the same year. The result’s then multiplied by 365 for every day of the year. The remainder of the year comprises an overshoot.
This year’s date for Ireland is almost a week ahead of last year’s date (27 April), which means the Irish are becoming less sustainable. Warned Chris Collins, president of Schneider Electric Ireland: “If we are going to play our part, we have a lot of catching up to do.”
Today, Ireland has less than eight years to meet its 2030 climate targets to limit Earth’s heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Energy efficiency is one of the fastest-growing ways to cut carbon emissions and save the planet, Collins said. Electric and smart, connected devices that use electricity efficiently are “delivering more and wasting less”. “Digital connectivity will enable the all-electric towns and cities of the future and the decentralised and decarbonised grid that serves them.”