GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, DECEMBER 7, 2023 – The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) recently announced article “Teaching sustainability within the context of everyday life: Steps toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through the EUSTEPs (Enhancing Universities’ Sustainability Teaching and Practices through Ecological Footprint) Module” as the recipient of the 2023 AASHE Sustainability Award for outstanding research in higher education sustainability. The research – conducted within the context of the EUSTEPs project, funded by the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Union – won in the Campus Sustainability Research Award category.

AASHE bestows its prestigious awards on the institutions and individuals that help lead higher education to a sustainable future. This year, AASHE received 300+ entries resulting in 10 winners announced across five categories. Entries were judged on overall impact, innovation, stakeholder involvement, clarity, and other criteria specific to each category.

Georgios Malandrakis, Associate Professor in Environmental Education at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and EUSTEPs project coordinator, acknowledges the privilege of working with the dedicated and inspiring project team. “It is a great pleasure to receive the AASHE award. This EU funded project brought together 16 researchers from 4 countries whom were initially almost unknown to each other. Through our research collaboration, we became friends, developed this successful educational module, and managed to engage and educate more than 7,000 university students from nearly 60 countries,” explains Malandrakis.

The EUSTEPs project’s successes are a culmination of three years’ work from passionate project partners. “What impresses me most is the wealth of information captured in the various documents and interactive tools we created to empower students, educators, and HEI administrative staff. It’s rewarding that, in our research findings on the EUSTEPs Module, students found Global Footprint Network’s personal Footprint Calculator to be the most useful educational material to better understand how their daily activities fit into the bigger picture of sustainability,” reflects Director of Mediterranean and MENA Regions at Global Footprint Network, and EUSTEPs research awardee Dr. Alessandro Galli.

“The 2023 AASHE Sustainability Award winners exemplify an unwavering commitment to advancing sustainability within their academic institutions. They are setting new standards and reshaping the landscape of sustainability in higher education,” said AASHE Executive Director Meghan Fay Zahniser.

AASHE held a virtual awards ceremony on Dec. 7 to recognize and celebrate the 10 award recipients. Award recipients receive recognition in various formats, including a plaque from Rivanna Natural Designs, a woman-owned B Corp with a strong commitment to sustainability. To date, 135 higher education institutions and people have been recognized through this prestigious award program since its inception in 2006.

To read more about AASHE’s awards programs, please visit http://www.aashe.org/get-involved/awards/.

Media Contacts

Amanda Diep, Director of Communications
Global Footprint Network
media@footprintnetwork.org

Candi Reddick, Director of Marketing & Communications
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education
(888) 347-9997
creddick@aashe.org

About the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)
AASHE empowers higher education administrators, faculty, staff, and students to be effective change agents and drivers of sustainability innovation. AASHE enables members to translate information into action by offering essential resources and professional development to a diverse, engaged community of sustainability leaders. We work with and for higher education to ensure that our world’s future leaders are motivated and equipped to solve sustainability challenges. For more information, visit www.aashe.org. Follow AASHE on Facebook, Instagram, and X, formerly known as Twitter.

About EUSTEPs
EUSTEPs (Enhancing Universities’ Sustainability Teaching and Practices through Ecological Footprint) is a project carried out, under the leadership of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, by the strategic partnership between four European universities and non-governmental organisation Global Footprint Network, the official home of the Ecological Footprint methodology and applications. https://www.eusteps.eu/

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GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – 14 SEPTEMBER – New research coordinated by Global Footprint Network’s sustainability scientists in collaboration with food system experts published the article “EU-27 Ecological Footprint was primarily driven by food consumption and exceeded regional biocapacity from 2004 to 2014” today in Nature Food. The way food is provided to and consumed by Europeans represents the largest share of their Ecological Footprint at around 30 percent. The study points to the need for designing, implementing and enforcing policies across each stage of the food supply chain to advance towards the EU Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy.

From farm to fork, food systems generate many pressures on ecosystems including land use and land use change, water depletion and pollution, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse gas emissions. “People in Europe are eating beyond their means in terms of imports, carbon emissions, and land and water use,” explains article author Professor Roberta Sonnino, Centre for Environment and Sustainability and Fellow of the Institute for Sustainability at the University of Surrey. “The tendency to intervene either on the supply or on the demand side isn’t working. Rather, we need a systemic approach to address them together, as well as looking at trade policies. Instead of taking a scattergun approach, national governments must implement holistic food policies based on evidence – the sort of evidence contained within this research,” Sonnino affirms.

Humanity’s demand for biological resources and ecosystem services far exceeds the planet’s capacity to regenerate biological resources and sequester carbon dioxide emissions, as shown by the progression of Earth Overshoot Day. Similarly, and for the data analysed in the study, the Ecological Footprint of EU-27 residents constantly exceeded the region’s biocapacity and depended upon resources from outside the region to meet EU lifestyle demands.

“The EU Green Deal and the Farm to Fork strategy position the EU as a global leader in the transition towards more sustainable food systems and societies. However, as nearly 25 percent of the biocapacity needed to support the diets of EU-27 residents originates from non-EU countries, our analysis suggests that solely applying Farm to Fork objectives to the domestic agricultural sector will not be sufficient to meet the EU decarbonization targets and instead shifts environmental impacts to non-EU countries,” states lead author and coordinator of the research Alessandro Galli, Ph.D., Director for Mediterranean and MENA Regions, Global Footprint Network.

“Supply-side changes alone are likely insufficient to make the EU-27 food system sustainable in the terms described by the Farm to Fork Strategy. Including both nutritional and sustainability perspectives into national food-based dietary guidelines, changes in food consumption and behaviour trends can be triggered for the benefit of both planetary and human health,” elucidates author Marta Antonelli, Ph.D., Food Systems Project Lead, Global Footprint Network.

Media Contact

Alessandro@footprintnetwork.org
media@footprintnetwork.org

Additional information

NEW Nature Food paper
Interactive Ecological Footprint and biocapacity data platform
Food Footprint Platform
Earth Overshoot Day’s Power of Possibility

About Global Footprint Network

Global Footprint Network is an international sustainability organisation dedicated to creating a world where all can thrive within the Earth’s means. This includes responding to climate change, biodiversity decline, and unmet human needs. Since 2003 we’ve engaged with more than 30 cities, 50 countries, and 70 global partners to improve their resource security by delivering scientific insights relevant for high-impact policy and investment decisions. www.footprintnetwork.org

The post New research published by Nature Food reveals food is primary driver of the EU-27’s outsized Ecological Footprint appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

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GENEVA, SWITZERLAND and OAKLAND, CA — December 1st, 2022 — Global Footprint Network, home to the Ecological Footprint metric publicized on Earth Overshoot Day and a global sustainability organization, welcomes Steven Tebbe at its helm.

“The board is impressed with Steven’s achievements advancing sustainability disclosure standards from voluntary, market-based solutions to a compliance framework on environmental performance. He brings world-class corporate, nonprofit and policy experience, remarkable leadership qualities and genuine dedication to sustainability. We’re thrilled that Steven is now leading our team at Global Footprint Network as the organization looks to elevate its impact on policy making and business strategy,” said Board Chair Rosanna Marie Neil.

An expert on environmental, security, and transportation issues, Tebbe has held various senior management positions at Mercedes-Benz, Airbus, the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary NetJets, the environmental non-profit CDP, and the EU standards setter EFRAG.

Over the past decade, Tebbe led the development of disclosure standards to enhance corporations’ transparency and responsibility for sustainable business practices, through his roles at CDP as well as Senior Advisor in the EU standard setting process.

His work contributed to the establishment of EU’s sustainability reporting standards mandated under the CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive adopted this month by the European Parliament and European Council) which covers 50 000 companies across the EU and their international trading partners.

“Thanks to our transparent, peer-reviewed and evolving metrics, deeply rooted in academia and policy since the mid-1990s, Global Footprint Network holds tremendous potential for designing our path towards true ecological sustainability,” Tebbe said. “You need to measure what you manage and the Ecological Footprint accounting methodology allows humanity to do just that: this metric is essential to finding the right balance between resource depletion and regeneration. Our focus going forward is to empower people and institutions to take concrete action and track progress until we successfully push Earth Overshoot Day back to December 31st and beyond.”

“Our power lies in our ability to track ecological overshoot from global to local levels,” concurred Ecological Footprint co-creator and Global Footprint Network co-founder Mathis Wackernagel, Ph.D. “The National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts core dataset are now maintained under the stewardship of the Footprint Data Foundation (FoDaFo), whose outstanding natural and social scientists provide direction on enhancing the data and methodology of the accounts. This ensures their quality as trusted and reliable data for decision-makers around the world. I am delighted that Steven is joining us to boost our efforts to make them more empowering and actionable than ever before.”

With Master’s degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Solvay Business School, Tebbe has been shaping sustainability policy and business practices as a contributor to industry journals and conferences, and through knowledge sharing at universities and think-tanks, including the prestigious Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany.

“In order to be a force for good, the business world needs reliable and clear guidance on the pathway to true sustainable impact. Global Footprint Network provides this through the Ecological Footprint,” said André Hoffmann, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors for Roche Holding Ltd., and honorary Global Footprint Network Board Chair. “I am excited about what can come from the organization’s reinvigorated efforts in the private sector under Steven’s leadership.”

Growing interest from financial markets in Global Footprint Network’s offerings suggests that the financial sector also needs better indicators to make good investment decisions. “The financial community is drowning in data and starving for insights, especially when it comes to assessing natural resource depletion and the huge opportunities that a transition to a more regenerative economy offers. Investors, and other financial markets’ participants, that work with Steven to utilize Global Footprint Network’s metrics in their decision-making process now, will be better positioned for long-term success,” said Louis de Montpellier, former Global Head of the Official Institutions Group at State Street Global Advisors and former member of the executive board of the Bank for International Settlements.

About Global Footprint Network
Global Footprint Network is an international sustainability organization that is helping the world live within the Earth’s means and respond to climate change. Since 2003 we’ve engaged with more than 60 countries, 40 cities, and 70 global partners to deliver scientific insights that have driven high-impact policy and investment decisions. Together, we’re creating a future where all of us can thrive within the limits of our one planet. www.footprintnetwork.org

Q&A with Steven Tebbe
“We’ll know we’ve succeeded when we’ve made our work obsolete,” says Global Footprint Network’s new CEO as he commented on the organization’s mission to help humanity end overshoot by design rather than disaster.

Media Contact

media@footprintnetwork.org

The post New CEO Steven Tebbe means business appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

To maintain progress and eradicate poverty, countries need either sufficient biological resources within their country to match their ecological footprint, or money to competitively buy what they need on markets abroad. When neither of these two conditions are met, countries may end up in an ecological poverty trap — a situation in which the country’s biological resources are insufficient to provide enough food, fibres, building materials and CO₂ sequestration, among other factors.

“What worries us even more is the fact that most development strategies across the world are not adequately addressing this vast resource insecurity, thereby becoming severely anti-poor,” said Mathis Wackernagel. “The tragedy is that many strategies exist to improve resource security, but they are not being employed at scale in any country—even though they are the only true value-generating opportunities, as all other resource-depleting activities are ultimately destroying wealth and opportunities,” he added.

Mathis Wackernagel and colleagues compared and classified countries based on their relative gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and ecological deficit (the amount of biological resources they consume in excess of what their own ecosystems can renew) between 1980 and 2017, to analyse the exposure of national economies to resource constraints. The authors found that the percentage of the world’s population living in a country with both a deficit in biological resources and below-world-average income went from 57% in 1980 to 72% in 2017. In addition, the worldwide ecological deficit went from 19% to 73% over the same period.

The authors emphasize strategies exist to enable lasting development, that both advances human development and resource security. They include: the way we build and manage our cities, how we power them, how we feed ourselves, and how many we are. Where financial budgets are scarce, the question is how existing budgets are used to favour solutions that avoid, rather than increase, the likelihood of sliding towards an ecological poverty trap. Once the threshold has been crossed, exiting the trap in the absence of biological and financial resources becomes close to impossible.

##########

Media Contact
media@footprintnetwork.org

Resources

The Importance of Resource Security for Poverty Eradication, Nature Sustainability

The post New study in Nature Sustainability shows 72% of the world’s population lacks resource security appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

Italy, March 9th, 2021 – Foodnected, a new project designed to promote the transition to sustainable and fair food systems in the Mediterranean region, will be launched on March 10 at a virtual event as part of the international festival Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, project partners Slow Food, Global Footprint Network, Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE), and GOB Menorca announced today.

“After striving for years to stress the importance of education and raise consumers’ awareness of the value of their food and their connection with the people who produce it, we are excited to collaborate with sustainable fishing and farming organisations to progress to a world where all the actors can come together through common initiatives to improve each other’s lives through an essential aspect of what it means to be human: the food we choose to consume to not only feed our bodies, but also nurture our spirits and communities,” said Paula Barbeito, Foodnected Coordinator at Slow Food.

Funded by the MAVA Foundation over a two-year period, Foodnected is about “Connecting people and nature around local, fair and sustainable food systems.”

“Our foundation supports sustainability initiatives that protect nature and support people’s livelihoods. The way we consume and produce food impacts our environment. We believe that short-chain food systems grounded in local traditions hold a great potential to maintain and preserve  biodiversity — both cultivated and wild,” said Julien Semelin from MAVA Foundation.

Foodnected is driven by the vision of bringing producers and consumers together through a Community of Practice grounded in shared values. By shortening the distance between producers and consumers and developing an ethical code of environmental and social values for the way food is produced and consumed, the project will address shortcomings in the prevailing market system and reverse the unfair situation faced by small-scale producers.

“Gaining fair access to resources and markets is a fundamental struggle for small-scale low-impact fishers who make up the majority of the European fleet. We believe that working together with others is essential to achieving a positive and meaningful change in our food systems. To be viable, fishers must be rewarded for the value they add through their good practices. On the other hand, consumers need to be able to easily identify sustainable, healthy and fair products, and to know their story, so they can value and select them,” said LIFE Executive Secretary Brian O’Riordan.

Ultimately, Foodnected intends to facilitate the emergence of short-chain food systems that work for nature and people – both consumers and the small-scale producers who depend on them for their livelihood.

The project is scheduled to unfold in three phases. First, it will clarify an approach to fair and sustainable food systems through nurturing the development of a Community of Practice composed of actors along the value chain.

“All of us – as citizens, producers and consumers – can play a central role in the transition towards sustainable food systems. But making the right choices depends on the possibility to rely on scientifically-sound information. For this reason, relying on a science-based approach to identify pertinent practices is going to be a strong aspect of this project. By applying Ecological Footprint accounting, we will be able to quantitatively monitor the impact of such practices,” said Alessandro Galli, senior scientist and the Mediterranean-MENA Program Director at Global Footprint Network.

Second, pilot initiatives will be implemented to develop market solutions for fair and sustainable food production and consumption at local level, especially in the Balearic Islands (Spain).

“The work we’ve been developing through our local network of farmers is set to enjoy a wider impact thanks to this collaborative project. We’re excited to be actors and to witness firsthand how we can accelerate change at home and inspire other communities,” said GOB Menorca’s Programme Director Miquel Camps.

Finally, the project aims to share lessons at a regional level. Results from the first two phases will be disseminated through advocacy work at national and wider regional – Mediterranean (GFCM) and EU – levels, especially within the framework of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy and in the context of the FAO International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (in 2022).

Foodnected launch event is to take place on Wednesday, March 10 at 2:00 pm CET. Anyone interested in learning more about the project is invited to attend. Information about event details and access can be found here.

Additional Resources

Press Release in Italian, French and Spanish

About Slow Food

Slow Food is a global network of local communities founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions and counteract the rise of fast-food culture. Since its founding, Slow Food has grown into a global movement involving millions of people in over 160 countries, working to ensure that everyone has access to good, clean and fair food. www.slowfood.com

Media contact: Alessia Pautasso (Italy) +39 342 864 1029 ~ a.pautasso@slowfood.it

About LIFE

The Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE) is an organisation of organisations of small-scale fishers around Europe. LIFE represents the interests of 31 organisations in 15 EU Member States associating around 10,000 small-scale fishers across all European sea basins from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Its mission is to commit small-scale fishers (SSF) to fishing in a low-impact manner, to transform low-impact SSF into an attractive and economically viable profession, which sustains fish stocks and protects the marine environment, and contributes to prosperous coastal communities. www.lifeplatform.eu

Media contact: Brian O’Riordan, Executive Secretary, deputy@lifeplatform.eu, +32 486368855

About Global Footprint Network

Global Footprint Network is an international sustainability organization that is helping the world live within the Earth’s means and respond to climate change. Since 2003 we’ve engaged with more than 60 countries, 40 cities, and 70 global partners to deliver scientific insights that have driven high-impact policy and investment decisions. Together, we’re creating a future where all of us can thrive within the limits of our one planet. www.footprintnetwork.org

Media contact: Laetitia Mailhes (France) +33 650 979 012 ~ laetitia.mailhes@footprintnetwork.org

About GOB Menorca

GOB Menorca is a non-profit organisation established in 1977. Its basic objective is to help achieve a truly sustainable economy by making human activities compatible with the preservation of the environment. GOB Menorca has several lines of work: land protection, marine conservation, recovery of wild fauna, promotion of sustainable gardening, environmental education, and the Agricultural Stewardship Programme (called Custòdia Agrària).

The Agricultural Stewardship Programme, which is based on the signing of an “Agreement on Sustainable Agrarian Practices”, aims to create, encourage and channel social alliances that, together with public initiatives, can achieve the maintenance and recovery of the local agricultural sector, while guaranteeing the preservation of the landscape and its associated biodiversity. GOB is considered an entity of Public Utility and has received numerous awards and recognitions from both public administrations and private companies. It counts with over 1.400 members and is considered a main influencing actor in the island.

Media contact: Jara Febrer (Spain) +34 971350762 – jfebrer@gobmenorca.com

About the MAVA Foundation

MAVA was born from the passion and vision of its founder, Luc Hoffmann, an extraordinary naturalist who believed fiercely in protecting the planet’s wild splendor.

The MAVA Foundation conserves biodiversity for the benefit of people and nature by financing, mobilizing and strengthening its partners and the conservation community. MAVA also accompanies them on their conservation journey, helping them develop the skills they need and strengthening their ability to deliver. mava-foundation.org/

Media Contact: Julien Semelin, julien.semelin@fondationmava.org

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“While global agreements can powerfully support humanity’s progress towards a sustainable future, we cannot afford to wait before we take action, one city, one country, one company, one entity, one individual at a time. All of us are called to shaking off the status quo, letting our imaginations soar, embracing possibilities, and championing innovation in all shapes and forms. Ultimately, a constellation of life-sustaining actions is what is needed in order to #MoveTheDate of Earth Overshoot Day intentionally and by design, in 2021 and each year that follows,” Global Footprint Network stated. Full text available here.

Dubbed a “super year” because of the multiple UN summits which are slated to take place on biodiversity (CBD COP15), climate change (UNFCCC COP26), and desertification (UNCCD COP15), 2021 got off to a sobering tone at the One Summit Planet in Paris last week. “Not one of the goals set in the Aichi Declaration on biodiversity was achieved over the past decade and we must contemplate that failure,” France’s president and conference host Emmanuel Macron said.

In this context, Global Footprint Network urges all decision makers to consider this essential lesson which COVID-19 taught us: for all its technological advances, humanity is not immune to the impacts of overusing natural ecosystems, damaging wildlife, and compromising the biosphere. We are not separate from nature – we cannot be healthy on an unhealthy planet. Neither are we separate from one another. We are one biology on one Earth. No effective path to a sustainable future can be found outside of reckoning our one-planet context and transforming the economic structure that generates as much global demand on nature as if we lived on 1.7 planets, according to National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts 2020 data.

Resources

data.footprintnetwork.org
www.overshootday.org/appeal-2021

About Global Footprint Network

Global Footprint Network is an international sustainability organization that is helping the world live within the Earth’s means and respond to climate change. Since 2003 we’ve engaged with more than 60 countries, 40 cities, and 70 global partners to deliver scientific insights that have driven high-impact policy and investment decisions. Together, we’re creating a future where all of us can thrive within the limits of our one planet. www.footprintnetwork.org

Media Contact

Laetitia Mailhes (France)
+33 650 979 012
laetitia.mailhes@footprintnetwork.org

Amanda Diep (USA)
+1 (510) 839-8879 x309
amanda.diep@footprintnetwork.org

The post We do not need a pandemic to #MoveTheDate. International organizations agree. appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

Since food consumption represents about 30% of Portugal’s Ecological Footprint, it has become fundamental to identify policies and actions, both at the national and local levels, that guide more sustainable eating behaviors and promote major changes in food habits in the country.

Recently published in the renowned international scientific journal Science of the Total Environment under the title “Sustainable food transition in Portugal: an assessment of the Footprint of food choices and of gaps in national and local food policies“, the study was authored by researchers from the University of Aveiro and from Global Footprint Network.

The case of Portugal is particularly worth investigating, not only because it displays the largest food Footprint per capita of all the Mediterranean countries, with a high consumption of meat and fish, but also because about 1 million tons of food are wasted each year in the country.

In this context, the study sought to understand the importance of the food Footprint through the origin and the intensity of the demand for natural resources through food patterns, while evaluating the existence of food policies that are capable of transforming current food systems – or lack thereof. The use of Ecological Footprint accounting to assess the impact of food consumption on environmental sustainability challenges is particularly revealing, especially in the local context of Portuguese municipalities.

The study points to 1) the high consumption of resource-intensive foods such as meat and seafood (especially tuna, swordfish and cod) and 2) the dependence on foreign countries (such as Spain, France, Brazil, or even China) to provide food resources to meet Portuguese demand. As shown in the table below, the most dependent food categories are “bread and cereals,” “sugar, honey, sweets, chocolate, etc.”, as well as “food fats”

The study also identifies the food Footprint of six municipalities in Portugal (Almada, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Guimarães, Lagoa, and Vila Nova de Gaia), pioneers in Ecological Footprinting at the local level. The high impact of meat and fish consumption are highlighted.

The published article demonstrates the importance of structuring and supporting the governance of cities around more sustainable food systems. Although pioneers in environmental policies, the municipalities mentioned above still have a long way to go before overcoming the weaknesses identified in their food policies. This fact alone demonstrates that local food policies in Portugal are still at an immature stage — as in many other countries, as the study indicates. Strengthening the capacity of local governments to work on these issues (with multidisciplinary groups of qualified professionals, from nutritionists to forestry and agricultural engineers), strengthening coordination with national policies, particularly with the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security, and investing in strong education and awareness of civil society and businesses for behavior change, are essential paths.

The post Portugal’s food Footprint study points to eating patterns and policies as levers for action appeared first on Global Footprint Network.

“Sustainability requires both ecological balance and people’s well-being ensured over the long-term, therefore this year’s sudden Ecological Footprint contraction cannot be mistaken for progress,” said Global Footprint Network CEO Laurel Hanscom. “This year more than ever, Earth Overshoot Day highlights the need for strategies that increase resilience for all.”

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