The report summarises results and implications of the 2010 National Footprint Accounts, which provide accounting of ecological resource demand and supply for all nations with populations over 1 million.

It argues that humanity is in ‘overshoot,’ using more resources than Earth can renew, while most economic recovery efforts are cementing the trend and not decreasing economies’ structural dependence on resource throughput and ecological services. The report highlights that acting aggressively now to implement sustainable solutions will mean lower resource costs, greater resiliency in the face of supply chain perturbations and better positioning to take advantage of opportunities presented by a rapidly changing economy.

It is hoped that clear metrics, like those found in the report, will make it harder for policy makers to ignore the threat of overshoot, and get stuck in debates over the ‘affordability of sustainability’.

[Adapted from source]