Smaller eco footprint vital to living within our means

Between my previous column and this one, an important yet largely overlooked milestone slipped by: Earth Overshoot Day, which marks the date when humanity has used all the biological resources earth regenerates during the entire year. This year, the unheralded day fell on June 28 globally, but on June 1 for SA.

A finite planet produces a finite amount of resources sustainably. There are only so many hectares of land to be farmed or mined, or so many square kilometres of ocean to be fished at a sustainable rate each year. This is what is known as our ecological footprint.

On a per capita basis, this is quantified in global hectares (GHA) per capita, the ratio of an individual spatial footprint relative to the per capita biological capacity available on Earth. In 2019, there were about 12.2-billion hectares of biologically productive land and water on earth. Dividing this area by 7.7-billion people, the amount of the earth’s surface available to everyone to sustain ourselves is 1.6 GHA per person, without any space allocated for conservation or biodiversity .

The current global average ecological footprint is 2.84 GHA per capita, and SA is at 3.4, well above its peers with comparable human development indices. You don’t have to be a chartered accountant to deduce the implications. Using resources faster than they can replenish themselves means you must either borrow or eat into the capital base.

Given that Elon Musk has quite been unable to expand SpaceX’s operations to Mars yet, borrowing from another planet is clearly impossible, so erosion of the capital base is the only viable option, with predictable implications for the cost of production.

A long-term price analysis of key commodities reflects stable or decreasing real marginal production costs in key sectors such as soya beans, maize, beef, wool, lumber, wheat, copper, gold, aluminium, coal and crude oil, up until 2002, when the trend reversed.

This cost trend for key lifesustaining food, fibre and materials was first identified in a 2011 UN Environment Programme report co-authored by SA’s Mark Swilling, “Decoupling: Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth”. The report clearly shows that our ability to continue to extract resources with ever-increasing efficiency has ended.

Our carbon footprint now accounts for about 60% of humanity’s overall ecological footprint, and despite 20 years of climate negotiations remains its most rapidly growing component. Reducing humanity’s carbon footprint is the single most pressing step that must be taken to end this overshoot and live within our planetary means.

SA has made significant international commitments to decarbonisation over recent years, with the country’s updated nationally determined contribution pledge to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change target range now standing between 350and 420-million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030.

This represents a decrease of 15%-37% on the most recent greenhouse gas footprint of about 48-million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. However, as Eskom emits about 42% of the national total of greenhouse gases and the Integrated Resource Plan 2019 intends to maintain emissions at 275-million tonnes per year between 2025 and 2037 (about 22% higher than the current footprint), the decarbonisation burden must necessarily fall on the private sector.

The pressure is mounting on all sides through domestic and international carbon tariffs to price increases on essential food, fibre and materials, sustained escalation of the severe physical effects of climate change and calls from the public.

Companies wishing to remain successful in the future must either willingly find ways to adapt or have the terms of adaptation dictated to them.