English Abstract The Ecological Footprint (EF) has recieved much
attention as a potential indicator for sustainable development over the last
years. In this report, the EF concept has been applied to four different
countries, i.e. Benin, Bhutan, Costa Rica and the Netherlands in 1980, 1987
and 1994. The results of the assessment are discussed and the experiences
are used to discuss the current potential and limitations of the EF as a
sustainable development indicator. The originally defined methodology has
been slightly adapted: 1) the report focuses on individual components of the
EF (land and carbon dioxide emissions) instead of focuses on the aggregated
EF and 2) the land use calculations are based on local yiels instead of
global average yields. Although per capita and total land use highly differ
among the four countries, available data suggests increasing land use in all
four countries while per capita land use decreases. The EF for carbon
dioxide emissions increases for all four countries both per capita and in
absolute terms. Differences in productivity, aggregation (of different
resources) and multi-functional land use have been shown to be important
obstacles in EF application - depending on the assessment objective.
However, despite the obstacles, the study concludes that the EF has been
successful in providing an interesting basis for discussion on environmental
effects of consumption patterns - including those outside the national
borders - and on equity concerning resource use.