Why is Earth Overshoot Day earlier and earlier in the year?
May 4 was Overshoot Day 2023 for Germany – the date on which Earth Overshoot Day would fall if all of humanity consumed resources at the same rate as Germany. Earth Overshoot Day was announced today and is on 2nd August 2023. With a few exceptions, the day has moved ever earlier in the year since 1971 – despite all the recent efforts to protect the environment.
This once again shows that we are living beyond our means and, as a result, compromising living conditions and reducing opportunities both for people in other parts of the world and for future generations everywhere. So why does Earth Overshoot Day come earlier and earlier in the year? And what can we do to change the situation?
The construction and real estate industry is one of the world’s largest sources of carbon emissions. But this also means that it is capable of taking countermeasures – and it is to its own advantage to do so.
Consuming as if there were three Earths
Global Footprint Network is the scientific and sustainability organization behind Earth Overshoot Day. Based on data such as biocapacity, per capita consumption and emissions, it calculates Earth Overshoot Day (for the world as a whole) and an Overshoot Day for each country, where applicable.
While many countries, mainly in Africa and Asia, do not have an Overshoot Day because their population consumes less than the world’s biocapacity, Qatar reached this threshold on February 10, with Luxembourg following just four days later. Germany is also disgracefully early in the year. If people everywhere consumed like us, we would need three Earths to meet global needs.
#MovetheDate: We must do more
At #MovetheDate, you can find details of initiatives and projects that aim to move Earth Overshoot Day to much later in the year. One example is the town hall in the Stühlinger district of Freiburg, which – with a holistic energy concept developed by Drees & Sommer – was completed in 2017 and is the world’s first public-sector plus energy building. We have been working on zero carbon solutions for years and supporting organizations, companies, municipalities and cities with their transition to net zero. The European Green Deal and EU Taxonomy are measures taken by the European Union to ensure that we live in a more resource-efficient way overall, an aim we have failed to achieve in the recent past.
Unsurprisingly, reducing carbon emissions is one promising approach. According to Mathis Wackernagel, President of the Global Footprint Network, a 50% reduction in fossil fuel carbon emissions would push back Earth Overshoot Day by a full 93 days.
Cradle to Cradle® and other solutions
This should make the construction and building sector sit up and take notice, as – according to the Global Status Report for Buildings and Constructions published by the United Nations (UN) Environment Programme – the sector is responsible for around 40% of global emissions.
Building in a more resource-efficient way and operating buildings more sustainably is not just a question of responsibility and morality, but also a matter of cost-efficiency and competitive edge. Steffen Szeidl, spokesperson for the Drees & Sommer Executive Board, is convinced that “in the medium to long term, only companies that operate sustainably will survive, because there is no alternative to this approach and because – if all the risks are taken into account honestly and completely – it pays off”.
In an interview with us in 2021, Mathis Wackernagel – Global Footprint Network President and developer of the Ecological Footprint concept – pointed out that we should not simply strive to limit our consumption to the resources that Earth can regenerate, but aim for much less than that. “After all, there are other wild animal species on our planet besides us humans.”
And how can we build in a more resource-efficient way and operate buildings more sustainably? By using ideas for the Circular Economy such as Cradle to Cradle® and other solutions.
