Key facts: each year London:
Uses more than 2 million tonnes of wood products
Eats 730,000 tonnes of vegetables
Utilises 36 million tonnes of building materials
Emits 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide
Throws out 18 million tonnes of waste
Produces 8 million tonnes of sewage sludge


Ecological footprinting is a tool that helps us to estimate our
impact on the planet. In 1995, the ecologist Herbert Girardet
estimated that London's footprint was 125 times the size of the
city itself. In other words, London required an area the size of
the entire productive land surface of the UK in order to
function in terms of its resource use and disposal of pollutants
and waste. This footprint area is spread across the UK and
throughout the world.


In 2000 the GLA co-funded a new ecological footprint study of
London called 'City Limits'. The final report, by consultants
Best Foot Forward was launched in September 2002. Key findings
from the study showed that in the year 2000 Londoners:
Consumed 49 million tones of materials (or 6.1 tonnes each)
Consumed 154,407 GigaWatt hours of energy, and produced 41
million tones of CO2. Less than 1% of London's energy came
from renewable sources.
Consumed 6.9 million tonnes of food, of which 81% came from
outside the UK
Consumed 866 billion litres of water of which 28% was
leakage
Traveled 64 billion passenger kilometres of which 69% was
by car
Produced over 26 million tones of waste of which 71% was
landfilled and only 9% recycled


This translates into an ecological footprint for London of 49
million global hectares (gha) - which is 42 times its
biocapacity and 293 times its geographical area (roughly twice
the size of the UK). With a population of 7.4 million people,
this represents 6.63 global hectares per London resident. If
everyone on the planet is entitled to an equal share of the
Earth's bioproductive resources (termed the average earthshare)
then we would each have 2.18 gha. On this basis, Londoners
lifestyles can be said to be unsustainable and if everyone in
the world was to consume as much as we do, then we would require
at least three planets!


Further information can be obtained from the project website:
www.citylimitslondon.com

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