Reducing Scotland's footprint

This can be measured as an area of land needed to provide these resources – our ecological footprint. If we know the size of our footprint, we can see what kind of mark we are leaving on the planet and what we can do to reduce it. You can measure your own footprint today.

Footprint analysis has shown us that if everyone lived as we do in Scotland, we would need three planets to survive. Clearly Scotland’s footprint is too large and we need to take steps to live within our environmental limits. This is a major objective in the work of WWF Scotland.

The ecological footprint as been adopted by the Scottish Government as one of its national performance indicators - because it acknowledges Scotland must act to reduce its local and global environmental impact. WWF Scotland is working with the government to ensure all major policies and infrastructure decisions take account of their impact on Scotland's footprint and that the Scottish budget as a whole acts to reduce it.

We also work in partnership with the Sustainable Scotland Network to develop a support service for local authorities to measure and reduce their footprint called Local Footprints.

As part of this project, we have developed a Schools Global Footprint resource – an online calculator with teachers’ materials. This resource gives schools the opportunity to calculate their impact on our planet and learn about how this affects our environment and other people.