Change in methodology reduces Finnish ecological footprint

Finns slide down from 3rd to 16th in new WWF study

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The Finns' ecological footprint is now the 16th largest in the world per head of population, according to a new WWF Living Planet Report.
      Just two years ago, an earlier edition of the report singled out Finland for a rather undesirable podium place as the country in the world with the 3rd-largest ecological hoofprint, behind only the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
      These two countries still feature at the top, but Kuwait has replaced Finland, and Denmark moves into fourth place from 11th last time.
     
The substantial change in the ratings owes a great deal less to the Finns' adopting a more sustainable lifestyle or better stewardship of their natural resources, and more to changes in methodology, most noticeably in the way the numbers are crunched.
      Principally, the carbon footprint of nuclear electricity is set at zero in the new report, whereas in 2006 it had been measurable in the same terms as units of electricity produced using fossil fuels.
      Given that Finland - together with countries such as France (down from 12th to 21st), Sweden (from 8th to 18th), Switzerland, and Japan - has a high degree of nuclear energy in its electricity production mix, the positive impact of the change is quite large, and larger than for countries without such a profile.
     
The Finnish footprint is now 5.2 hectares per person, or 2.5 hectares less than it was two years ago.
      The figure reports how much land is harnessed to the maintaining of an individual Finn's standard of living.
      There is still little for the Finns to preen about, since a sustainable figure in this respect would be 2.1 hectares - in other words that is what the planet can cope with. If everyone lived the way we do, we would need two and a half planets to get by.
     
At the same time, in purely local terms Finnish consumption does not exceed our biocapacity per person, or the renewable natural resources at our disposal - in Finland's case mostly our forests.
      Finland is among the few European countries - along with Sweden and the Baltic States - whose biocapacity is clearly in surplus relative to ecological footprint.
      The report indicates that the largest share of our footprint, around 40%, comes from our use of those same forests.
      The CEO of WWF Finland Timo Tanninen acknowledges that the Living Planet Report barometer may overstate the consumption of significant export items in their countries of production, thereby "putting the blame" on the producers of the goods rather than on the end-users to whom they are sold.
      "Examples of this could be fish production in Norway or the forestry branch in Sweden and Finland."
     
In any event, we should probably be spending less time gazing at where one country or another is in the table and more on the sobering thought that as a whole the global ecological footprint of around 2.7 hectares per person exceeds what the planet can live with by around a third.
      The WWF describes the situation as a kind of ecological credit crisis.
      "We are constantly living in debt, and everyone understands that at some point that debt will have to be paid. If we do not pay it, then our children will pay even more", says Tanninen.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  WWF report: Finns´ ecological footprint third-heaviest in world (25.10.2006)
  COMMENTARY: Heroes to zeroes - Finland the eco-list darling joins the rank and vile (31.10.2006)

See also:
  Finns consume about one truckload of natural resources per capita each year (29.10.2008)

Links:
  WWF Living Planet Report 2008: Humanity´s demands exceed our planet´s capacity to sustain us
  Full Living Planet Report (.pdf file)
  Living Planet Report 2006: Human footprint too big for nature

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