An agenda for establishing the Ecological Footprint as communication instrument and indicator for sustainable development in small countries: Case study Luxembourg

The Ecological Footprint methodology proposed by the Global Footprint Network (GFN) seems to be not entirely appropriate for small countries with less than one million inhabitants [Ewing et al., 2008]. This may be a reason why e.g. results for Luxembourg, a country with 470,000 inhabitants, have never been included into official country Footprint comparisons. Therefore, the methodology needs to be adapted to be used for communication purpose in Luxembourg. This contribution presents Luxembourg’s approach for illustrating the national consumption impacts to finally discuss the integration of the Ecological Footprint as an indicator for sustainable development in the national indicator system.