Earth Overshoot Day 2026 falls on July 30th

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What's the Problem, Really?

Exploring the underlying problem

What is the Problem?

Reflecting on Strategy

Latvia - A Green Giant

Read about their resource advantage

Overshoot and National Security

Read More on the Biocapacity Blind Spot in National Security Strategies

Receiving the Nobel Sustainability Award

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How can we make the need for resource security more obvious to diverse audiences? asks Mathis Wackernagel

Why did you write “Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budget” now? Bill Rees and I wrote our first Ecological Footprint book in 1995 at a time when our resource-use estimates were still crude. The book summarized my Ph. D. dissertation, including a presentation of the basic premises of the idea as well as some basic... View Full Article

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Food security in a
world of overshoot

Those with higher incomes than others are more likely to be able to buy more from other countries than vice versa. More ›

Biocapacity Perspectives

1 February 2025

The Global Footprint Network approach

Humanity’s escalating ecological overshoot, demanding over 75% more from nature than ecosystems can regenerate, has triggered climate disruption, biodiversity loss,... More ›

1 June 2026

Everyone Considers Themselves to Be a Special Case

As part of a portrait by Switzerland’s largest media group Tamedia, Mathis Wackernagel discussed in May 2026 how overshoot may... More ›

30 September 2024

The Biocapacity Blind Spot in National Security Strategies

By Abigail Robinson and Mathis Wackernagel First published on Medium Climate change is not the problem. The future has... More ›

1 June 2026

Peter Raven (1936-2026)

Ravens are edge species: versatile, intelligent. They are highly adaptable and rapid learners. They have the largest brain relative... More ›

14 September 2025

Companies' value creation in times of overshoot

In just seven months, humanity consumes as much from nature as Earth can regenerate in a year. Earth Overshoot Day... More ›

26 April 2021

72%

72% of the world population live in countries faced with a precarious situation. These countries both (1) run a biological... More ›

27 July 2023

The Power of Food

This year, Earth Overshoot Day falls on August 2nd. That’s the consequence of humanity demanding 70% more than Earth’s ecosystems... More ›

5 April 2023

Escape from Overshoot

Prof. Peter Victor, our colleague from York University, has authored a book about the 21st century’s most debilitating disease: global... More ›

18 January 2023

Don't ask people to reduce their Footprint!

By Mathis Wackernagel, Ph.D., founder and President This blog is dedicated to a young, brilliant student. Back in 1995, she... More ›

18 October 2021

Tackling Ecological Overshoot: The food system’s 10 “impossible imperatives”

Global Footprint Network and its partners characterize the food dilemma through a set of ten tough challenges we call the... More ›

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