Check out if Global Footprint Network is in The Top 100 NGOs 2013 Edition!

Measuring human ecological impact.

57 national governments engaged.

According to Global Footprint Network’s Mathis Wackernagel, ‘humanity is living off its ecological credit card’. Since 2003, the environmental organization he cofounded with Susan Burns has made it its mission to end ecological ‘overshoot’ by ensuring ecological limits figure increasingly centrally in decision-making.

The Oakland-based Global Footprint Network promotes programs to influence decisionmakers at all levels of society (government, cities and corporations). Key to this approach has been the development of the ‘Ecological Footprint’ – an analytic tool that functions as a sophisticated indicator bolstering sustainable development policies by quantifying human ecological impact. In order to create a critical mass of institutions using the Ecological Footprint as an accepted resource accounting tool, the Global Footprint Network has developed a network of more than 90 partners across six continents that play a local advocacy role and contribute to the ongoing refinement of the tool’s methodology and application.

(Photo © Global Footprint Network)