23rd October 2025
Planetary boundaries and Earth overshoot day
Every year the Global Footprint Network calculates the date by which humans will have consumed a year’s worth of the Earth’s resources. Further consumption after that date uses resources at a faster rate than by which they can be replenished – in other words for that remaining part of the year our consumption takes us beyond safe planetary boundaries.
This is a global calculation. Individual nations – and indeed individuals themselves – will be consuming at different rates. Specifically there are some nations who consume far more then others and will have consumed their share of the Earth’s resources much earlier than the global Earth overshoot day – eg Qatar, the USA, Belgium inter alia. Whilst there are other nations who consume far less and may not even consume their share of the Earth’s resources before the year’s end – eg Burundi and Bhutan.
Clearly those nations who consume over and above the global average need to reduce their consumption, but would be enough if they reduced their consumption to that average? Not really because those levels of consumption would only stay within the limits of our planetary boundaries if the poorer nations were content to continue to under consume. In reality those poorer nations should be able to benefit from the better living standards that accrue from having satisfactory levels of food, education, healthcare, sanitation, housing, transportation etc.
Consumption levels for the richer nations need to fall substantially if everyone is to have a good standard of living.
The Green Tau 