By Luanga Kasanga, Jr.

The ecological footprint is a measure of one’s impact on the environment according to activities or lifestyle. In the course, “Environmental Sustainability in Ecuador,” students calculated their ecological footprints using online tools and reflected on the findings.

My ecological footprint was equal to 2.2 global hectares. Resultantly, as the screenshots show, my personal overshoot day is September 29! This surprised me a little because I thought it would be closer to November or December. I think what really costs me is my food consumption (I eat meat half the time each week) and I have to fly annually to reach my university in the USA. Occasionally, I might have a tourist-related vacation, but that is rare.

Compared to my country, Congo, my footprint is not that great; and again, I believe it’s mostly my flying that affects this since Congolese citizens (on average) have a similar diet to me. I had heard of this ecological footprint concept before and studied it a bit in my United World Colleges (UWC) IB Geography classes. One thing that has always struck me is the biggest differences in ecological footprints between nations. It is fascinating that the countries with the least capacity to switch to better food consumption patterns or waste management systems (mainly in the Global South) always seem to have the better ecological footprint than Global North countries, which do have this capacity.

Congo has great biocapacity and also utilizes 99% renewable energy. Subsequently, we are among the strongest countries in the world in terms of ecological footprint. This is before even adjusting for protected natural parks and healthy farming practices among Indigenous communities—an odd term for me to use for Congo, considering that most of the population is Indigenous.

Fundamentally, our ecological footprint per person has remained pretty much the same since the 1980s according to the graph, and that is quite promising. It’s only our biocapacity that has gone down slightly. Regardless, we are 6th in the world for biocapacity deficit, while still maintaining a healthy ecological footprint.

This takes me back to the topic of climate reparations. Countries that contribute the least to the climate crisis will bear the brunt of the negative effects, such as Bangladesh or the Pacific islands. On a per capita basis and among the biggest ecological footprints, the USA and its citizens are a major contributor to today’s climate crisis across the world, and they have a lot of work to do.