Results
The Bay Area's residents have a per-capita Ecological Footprint fourteen percent lower than the rest of the United States. The region's average Ecological Footprint is 20.9 acres per capita, while the nation's is 23.6. If everyone lived like a resident of the Bay Area, we would need more than four and a half Earths.
San Francisco County's overall Ecological Footprint index is the smallest in the region (although it accounts only for residents, not people who commute into the county), and this difference is largely due to the transportation and housing components of its Ecological Footprint. Smaller Footprint components in other portions of the region suggest that progress toward regional sustainability is being made in incremental steps around the region. They also indicate that communities can seek models within the region as they move toward sustainability.
Overall, much of the region's Footprint comes from energy consumption-whether that is direct consumption of electricity and fuel use, or indirect consumption through food, goods, and services, many of which are produced elsewhere and transported to the area. Encouragingly, efforts to increase recycling do result in decreases in county-level ecological impact. The following graph illustrates both the total Footprint associated with each county in the Bay Area, as well as the components that make them up.
Ecological Footprint Index produced by Redefining Progress, 2002-2004.
The following table divides the Footprint components into the areas of life to which they correspond. Overall, Energy Land is the largest component, followed by Cropland to support the growing of food and fiber.
| Energy land | Crop land | Pasture | Forest | Built area | Fishing Grounds | Total | |
| ENERGY | 2.92 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.92 |
| HOUSING | 0.24 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.63 | 0.25 | 0.00 | 1.13 |
| FOOD | 1.71 | 3.38 | 0.44 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.63 | 6.16 |
| GOODS&SERVICES | 4.73 | 0.40 | 0.06 | 1.82 | 0.22 | 0.00 | 7.23 |
| TRANSPORTATION | 3.80 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.81 |
| RECYCLING | -0.35 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | -0.35 |
| Total | 13.05 | 3.78 | 0.50 | 2.46 | 0.48 | 0.63 | 20.90 |
Policy Implications
In addition to a pat on the back as our Footprint is somewhat smaller than the rest of the nation, the Ecological Footprint results for the Bay Area suggest policy changes. Such changes, particularly on the part of local government agencies, can result in improved quality of life while reducing local ecological impacts.
The single largest component of any Ecological Footprint on the basis of land area is Energy Land. Therefore, policies that reduce local reliance on non-renewable energy sources are the most effective way to reduce the overall size of a community's Footprint. Local governments can:
- Require developers to build green buildings out of recycled content materials that are more reliant on renewable energy such as wind and solar. Such buildings are more pleasant and productive places to live, work, and play.
- Encourage compact building to reduce reliance on single-passenger vehicles and make public transit more viable. Compact communities encourage interaction among residents and make it possible to provide local services with fewer ecological impacts.
- Seek creative ways to finance public transportation, reducing the need for fossil fuel-based transportation and providing alternatives for people who are not able to own or drive cars.
- Promote consumption of local products to reduce associated transportation costs.
- Promote locally-grown food as a way to reduce the transportation required for food from more distant locations. This also helps support local farmers and their efforts to maintain small family farms.
- Continue to expand their good work promoting recycling
- Explore ways to help local industries work together and re-use waste products through eco-industrial park development. Such development can reduce costs for participants while resulting in more efficient use of energy and other resources.
Forest Land is another major component of the Ecological Footprint over which local governments have some control. Local governments can:
- Require housing developers to use sustainably harvested wood products and recycled content building materials where possible. Encourage the re-use of building materials after demolitions.
- Implement more aggressive paper recycling and re-use campaigns.
Local governments can make positive changes to reduce all of the components of the Ecological Footprint, and these examples are just the beginning. Individuals can do their part to reduce local Footprints by supporting local government actions and working on their own to reduce their own Footprints while introducing others to the concept.
About the Ecological Footprint
The Ecological Footprint accounts measure the use of nature by humanity. A population's Ecological Footprint index is the biologically productive area required to produce the resources and absorb the wastes of that population. Since people use resources from all over the world, Ecological Footprint accounts add up the extent of these areas by converting the resources used by a population into land area - wherever those resources may be located on the planet. Some human consumption, such as food, requires land area for production. Energy production based on fossil fuels requires land area to sequester the associated carbon dioxide emissions.
Footprints can be compared to the biological capacity of a region or the planet. If more resources are taken from nature than nature can renew, the natural capital that current and future generations depend on is eroded. This liquidation of our ecological assets is called "overshoot." Ecological Footprint accounting tracks the use of nature, helping to reduce human pressure on the planet and move the planet out of its overshoot situation. Sustainability means achieving satisfying lives for all within the limited capacity of the planet.
