Global Footprint Network: Time for Action is Now

kristyReforming Global Finance, Global Citizen

“GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT INDICATOR GAINING TRACTION WORLDWIDE, we congratulate our longtime colleague, Mathis Wackernagel, featured on our TV series in “Redefining Success!” – Hazel Henderson, Ed.

This past year has been one of the most exciting in Global Footprint Network’s history. Seven years since our organization’s founding, our efforts to bring ecological limits to the center of conversations on our future have paid off on a global scale.

The summer of 2009 saw the long-awaited release of the Stiglitz report, commissioned by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France . Produced by a team that included several Nobel Prize-winning economists, the report proposed new national indicators of progress, and devoted 12 full pages to the Ecological Footprint. The Stiglitz report is not an isolated phenomenon, but one of many signs of a broader turning of the tide. In 2009, Ecuador adopted the Footprint, and became the first country to set a formal Footprint target. The attention the Ecological Footprint received in the recent “beyond GDP” debate is a testament to our success in establishing the Footprint as a metric on par with GDP, and making ecological limits central to decision-making everywhere.

More importantly, these signs of confidence in the Ecological Footprint represent a powerful call-to-action: The world has woken up – now is the time to deliver concrete, science-driven tools so that leaders can act. Our goal is to offer leaders a graphically rich, interactive modeling and decision-making platform, integrating the Ecological Footprint with metrics that capture trade, material flows, and other key data. This new platform will allow decision-makers to explore scenarios in detail, and compare potential investments and strategies in light of their full range of consequences. In order to develop and deliver these crucial tools, Global Footprint Network will be launching a Research Science and Technology Campaign this fall. We look forward to inviting you to be part of this exciting new phase of our development, and working together to create an equilibrium shift in the human economy.

With warmest regards,

Mathis Wackernagel
President, Global Footprint Network