trend Analysis and interpretation of Luxembourg’s consumption Footprint NFA 2010 edition, data years 2000 – 2007

The Ecological Footprint methodology by Global Footprint Network measures human consumption of products and services from different ecosystems in terms of the amount of bioproductive land and sea area needed to supply these products and services. In other words, the Ecological Footprint calculates the land area needed to produce food, provide resources, produce energy, and absorb the CO2 emissions generated by the supply chains within one year at country level. For the calculations of Luxembourg’s Ecological Footprint, international statistical databases are used to identify the quantities of produced, imported and exported goods and services. Then, Global Footprint Network applies different factors to the quantities to assess the area needed to supply these products and services. Finally, the Consumption Footprint of a nation is divided by the number of inhabitants and compared to other countries at a per capita level (global hectares per capita). This means that the Ecological Footprint can be used as an indicator for the sustainability of a national consumption by assessing human land uses.
In the following paragraph, Luxembourg’s Ecological Footprint is discussed in the framework of the environmental indicators of Luxembourg’s competitiveness scoreboard (see Table 9) [MECE, 2010]. Luxembourg’s ranking is rather low for all of the scoreboard indicators: number of ISO 9001 certifications per billion of inhabitants (21 out of 27); number of ISO 14001 certifications per billion of inhabitants (15 out of 27); total greenhouse gas emissions (15 out of 27); renewable energy ration (23 out of 27); quantity of municipal waste per capita per year (24 out of 27); energetic intensity (8 out of 27); transport by car (17 out of 27); Ecological Footprint in gha per capita per year (27 out of 27).
Based on the environmental competiveness scoreboard indicators, it can be concluded that in general, Luxembourg’s environmental performance is low compared to the other countries of the European Union. With respect to Luxembourg’s Ecological Footprint, it can be said that Luxembourg’s consumption is not sustainable. The number of planets that would be needed if the world's population lived like the population of Luxembourg in 2007 is about six. However, per year, the biocapacity (bioproductive land) of the planet can only regenerate once.