As humanity takes more from the Earth in a year than can be regenerated, Earth Overshoot Day aims to bring us back to a sustainable relationship with our planet. Learn how your brand can engage with Earth Overshoot Day.

What is it all about?

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date that humanity has exhausted all of the natural resources that the Earth can regenerate in that year. For the rest of the year, we are stealing resources from future generations (overshooting), and getting ourselves deeper into ecological debt.

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When is Earth Overshoot Day 2024?

Currently, Earth Overshoot Day 2024 is predicted to fall sometime around the end of July. (We cannot know the date until we know how many resources we’ve used!)

2023’s Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 2 (Source: Global Footprint Network).

How is Earth Overshoot Day calculated?

Launched in 2006, Earth Overshoot Day is hosted and calculated by an international think tank, the Global Footprint Network. They have calculated the Overshoot Day of every year since we went into ecological deficit in the 1970s. Their campaign aims to raise awareness of the unsustainable supply and demand relationship humans have with our only home. Because of course, we cannot just keep borrowing indefinitely – eventually, all of our resources will be depleted. The ugly impacts of our ecological debts are already perceptible, taking the form of food shortages, soil erosion, extinction and surges in carbon dioxide levels.

But this is reversible. The Global Footprint Network have calculated that if we move the date back by a manageable five days per year, then we will be living sustainably by 2050. But in order to #MoveTheDate, businesses and individuals alike must commit to living within the means of our planet.

The formula for calculating our ecological footprint

The calculation itself is pretty simple:

(Earth’s Biocapacity / Humanity’s Ecological Footprint) x 365

“Biocapacity” refers to the amount of biologically productive areas such as forests, fishing grounds and crop that provide resources and absorb our waste. The term “Ecological Footprint” is how much we demand from nature. So in others words, the calculation is the amount of ecological resources that the planet is able to regenerate in one year, divided by humanity’s demand for that year, multiplied by the number of days in a year.

The numbers used in the calculation are based on data sets from the United Nations, with about 150,000 data points per country per year, as well as complementary data from other sources. The date published each year is an estimate based on these many thousands of data and is believed to be within 10-20% of the true date.

As well as calculating our ecological Footprint as a species, the Global Footprint Network has even made it possible for you to work out your own personal Footprint. By asking you a series of lifestyle questions, the ecological Footprint calculator estimates how many Earth’s we would need if everybody on the planet lived like you.

Facts and figures you need to know for Earth Overshoot Day

On average, humanity needs 1.75 planets to sustain us as we currently live. Country by country, however, there is a huge disparity between the lifestyles of richer and poorer populations. This means that some countries are using far more than their fair share of resources. If the whole world lived like the population of the USA for example, we would need 5 planets. If we all lived like Australia, we would need 4.1 planets. Russia, Germany and the U.K are similarly overshooting, requiring the equivalent of 3.2, 3.0 and 2.7 planets respectively (Source: Global Footprint Network National Footprint Accounts 2019).

By global hectare, the three countries with the largest Footprints are China, the USA and India, with Footprints of 5.2 billion, 2.61 billion and 1.55 billion global hectares respectively. Way down at the other end of the scale is Montserrat with a Footprint of just 23,100 global hectares, followed by Cook Islands (88,000) and Dominica (174,000).

To put this into perspective, the Global Footprint Network have also worked out when Ecological Overshoot Day would be if everybody in the world lived like the populations of each country. The UK does not fare too well, with its personal Overshoot date landing mid-way through the year on May 8, and it’s a similar story for other European countries like Italy, France and Germany. Meanwhile, Vietnam and Jamaica are only just overspending their resources, with their Overshoot date landing towards the end of December.

The impact of Covid-19 on Earth Overshoot Day 2020 and Ukraine

Corona virus has resulted in an overall contraction of humanity’s ecological Footprint – a 9.3% reduction globally compared with the same period last year. Our collective carbon Footprint was down 14.5% from 2019 and our forest Footprint reduced by 8.4% from the previous year. Our food Footprint however, has remained unchanged, with the pandemic exacerbating food waste in many areas as well as malnutrition among the lowest income populations.

Despite this, Earth Overshoot Day 2021 landed on July 29, meaning that we have still managed to burn through a years worth of resources in just 143 days. It’s clear that true sustainability will have to come about through design, not disaster.

In regards to Ukraine, because of time delays in UN statistics, the latest full assessment of countries only stretches through 2018 and does not cover these events. So its just estimates.

Why do brands need to pay attention?

Earth Overshoot Day is fast becoming one of the most visible campaigns to the public. It made leaps and bounds in 2019, and it’s only gaining more momentum: in 2019, the campaign made over four billion media impressions from 6,500 different websites; 121 countries covered Overshoot Day, including coverage by top-tier media across 50 countries; there were 733,000 new users of the Footprint Calculator; more than 500 solutions were posted on the new #MoveTheDate solutions map (a site for people to post and browse information about projects that are helping to reduce ecological overshoot); and there was social media engagement from multiple high-profile and influential people such as climate activist Greta Thunberg, Austrian president Van Bellen, and the former secretary general of NATO Javier Solano.

With such a high profile, Earth Overshoot Day is not a campaign to ignore, especially if your business prides itself on its sustainability and eco-friendliness. But it’s not just eco-conscious brands that need to pay attention. Engaging with Earth Overshoot Day and the issues it highlights is essential to all brands, if they want to stay afloat. This is because the economy is intrinsically tied to natural resources.

The business case for one-planet prosperity

Every economic activity depends on natural capital. Without these resources, no business can thrive for long. The competitive advantage of companies who work within the means of the planet is outlined in a white paper produced by Schneider Electric as a result of a partnership with the Global Footprint Network. Released in 2019, the white paper is entitled “The Business Case for One-Planet Prosperity”.

The white paper explains that one-planet compatibility is very much within reach, and that the technologies are readily available. Not only is it possible, but it is also the “strategic compass that can guide businesses to their own long-term success.”

The business case, it states, is clear. We live in a world where customers expect transparency and traceability, with these expectations fuelling ever-expanding markets. We live in a world where resources are rapidly shrinking, their availability becoming increasingly unreliable and their pricing unstable. We live in a world where the long-term value of assets and financing are more and more difficult to secure. Therefore, businesses can only benefit from latching on to these markets, freeing themselves from dependence on vanishing resources, and future-proofing assets to ensure enduring value. In both the long-term and the short-term, operating within the means of a single planet sets businesses up for success.

As a result, rapidly changing trends and legislation pose a huge risk to companies that are not one-planet compatible, and a huge opportunity to those that are.

How can my brand engage in Earth Overshoot Day, and which brands have done it well?

As always, a simple social media post can go a long way in terms of raising awareness and communicating tangible commitments. Several brands have taken to online platforms to show their support for the campaign. The Eden Project, Riverford Organic Farmers, and Boom Festival, for example, have all reached out on Facebook with a simple post, highlighting the issues raised by the Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Meanwhile, Unilever created a video in 2018 highlighting how small actions can have a big impact on the planet, encouraging viewers to make eco-friendly choices and to share these actions on social media with the hashtag #smallactsoflove. Social media is a great way to communicate active steps being taken by your brand, and using the Global Footprint Network’s hashtag #MoveTheDate will help to immerse your brand in the global conversation that’s taking place.

There are many other ways to engage your brand in Earth Overshoot Day, however, which can be then shared on social media to boost their impact. Here are some examples of other successful approaches taken by brands.

Tesco: Webinar on how businesses can work within the resources available

Experts from Tesco took part in a webinar organised by edie.net, alongside AB Sugar, Global Footprints Network and Centrica Business Solutions. The webinar discussed top tips and advice for how businesses can succeed within planetary boundaries. Some of this advice included: realising that one-planet compatibility is a mind-set and not a standalone project; noting that better measurement is better management; and understanding that collaboration is key. By taking part in this webinar, Tesco positioned themselves within the pool of experts helping to improve business infrastructure, and helped to raise awareness and promote solutions for one-planet compatibility.

Old Mout: Collaborative article to help customers do their bit for the planet

New Zealand cider brand Old Mout, who has a partnership with WWF, teamed up with conservationist Michaela Strachan to create a fun article listing 10 quirky but easy ways their customers can do their bit for the planet. Some of these included ‘greengifting’, keeping your garden wild, and stopping washing your jeans. This collaboration helped to give authority to Old Mout’s voice as a brand, whilst the light-hearted nature of the article enabled them to maintain the friendly tone that their brand embodies.

Dell: Sustainable business structure, from sourcing to operations

Dell’s commitment to moving the date, meanwhile, is integrated into the very core of their business.

In an article published in 2018, Dell discussed how their business is structured in a way that supports environmental sustainability and social responsibility, recognising that these things were inseparable from their company aim to drive human progress. They realised that a commitment to ‘net positive solutions’ (putting more back into society and the environment than they take out) would help to grow their brand, attract the best talent, and allow the company to thrive financially.

As of 2018, Dell is worth an estimated $70 billion. One of the biggest impacts the company can have, the article notes, is allowing their customers to also achieve net positive results with the tech Dell creates. For example, Dell’s focus on innovative closed-loop material sourcing, through the recovery of e-waste and ocean plastic, enables them to create a circular economy, as does their commitment to virtualisation to reduce the physical Footprint of their data centre.

Takeaway

Engaging in Earth Overshoot Day through social media campaigns, videos, webinars, and collaborative articles are just a few ways to begin showing your brand’s commitment to moving the date. The most important thing to take away, however, and the best way to engage, is to make your own business one-planet compatible. Restructuring your business around one-planet prosperity is an economically beneficial, even necessary, decision – especially long-term. For further resources and ideas for how to achieve this, take a look at Schneider Electric’s white paper.

Written by Jodie Sheehan