Calculate your Ecological Footprint

January 5, 2002

As a group, trail people seem to be concerned about ecosystems and natural resources. If you have always wanted to measure your ecological impact on the planet and did not know how, you now have that opportunity on the Redefining Progress web site. Redefining Progress is a non-profit public policy and research organization that develops policies and tools to reorient the economy so it will value people and nature first. The organization has developed a new, upgraded web-based Ecological Footprint Quiz calculator, which measures our individual impact on the planet. To discover the size of your own Ecological Footprint, click on the link below to take this quick and easy 13-question quiz.

To learn more about the Ecological Footprint concept, please follow the second link below. The Ecological Footprint of Nations 2001 report (available in pdf format), was also released at the end of the year by Redefining Progress. This report compares the ecological impact of 52 large nations, which are inhabited by 80 percent of the world population.

After you take the quiz, you have the option to download a more detailed Excel spreadsheet to make an in-depth analysis of your impact on resources. This is quick to download, and will be saved on your hard drive as M177nrk2.xls (they forget to tell you this). However, this longer exercise is not for the casual calculator! You will need to know or estimate a lot of information about the way you live. Even if you do not actually fill it out, it is interesting to see what factors might be used to make such a calculation.