Author(s)

M. Bagliani

Abstract

Use of global natural services and health of local ecosystems: the two complementary dimensions of environmental sustainability M. Bagliani IRES (Istituto Ricerche Economiche e Sociali) Piemonte Abstract Inspired by the definition and the methodology of the Ecological Footprint, a synthetic indicator of environmental sustainability, this study introduces two different categories of analysis, that concern the global-local spatial scale of ecosystems and their active-passive role. These two categories allow us to better analyse the definition and the formalism of the Ecological Footprint and lead to the definition of a new indicator, for which we propose the name Ecological Burden. Its formulation is parallel to that of the Ecological Footprint, but contains complementary information: the Ecological Footprint takes into account the use of natural services caused by consumption, while the Ecological Burden quantifies the natural services centring the budget on production. The former measure estim

Keywords