Tommy Morteboy Year 11

Reducing Eco-footprint
Geography

An eco-footprint is a measurement of human demand on the Earths ecosystem. In other words is
the amount of consumption of materials like fuel, light, water, food, etc. We can also see this by
how sustainable a city can be. Many countries are known for their effort for reducing their eco-
footprint, but there are countries that try harder than others. We are going to compare two
different cities, London and Toronto and how they are trying to reduce their bio productive space
with world average productivity.
London is mostly known for their ecological footprint in the terms of:
Material and waste
Food
Energy
Transport
Water
Degraded land
Material and Waste account for 44% of the footprint, meanwhile a 41% for food, in the other hand
10% for energy; however transport is only 5%, and finally 1% for water. Investigators have
researched that the footprint of London in 2080 will be at 35% for the earths share and by 2050
up to 80%.
London is trying to reduce their ecological footprint by reducing private transportation which
emits 80% of CO emission in London and encouraging people to walk and go cycling, this helps
the world and helps your health; however this is not the only way they are reducing their
footprint, they are also encouraging people to use the rail and underground. A train can reduce
CO emissions due to its recycled energy.
London has an organization called BedZED which is trying to reduce and make people that they
need to help the community and most importantly the world; this organization have built houses
that seem average but these places reduce the amount of energy and CO emission. BedZED have
discovered that is if everyone on earth consumed as much as the average European, we would
need three planets worth of resources to support us, so this organisations have created places
were its easy for people to lead a one planet life style on. BedZED was looking how to
communicate the lessons from this organisation, so they cam up with the concept of one planet
Living was developed, with along it 10 guides of sustainability:
Zero Carbon
Zero Waste
Sustainable Transport
Sustainable Materials
Local and Sustainable food
Sustainable water
Land and wild life
Culture and Heritage
Equity and local economy
Health and happiness
Meanwhile Toronto ecological footprint is:

The ecological footprint on average, Canada/Toronto
demands on nature goods and services is
approximately 7.25 hectares per person. In other
words this tells us that it takes 7.25 hectares of land
and sea throughout the world to support Canadians,
unfortunately the world only has 1.90 hectares of
available land and sea capacity to meet the demands
on six billion humans. The average global citizen has a
footprint of only 2.8 hectares, much smaller than the
average Canadian.