We can #MoveTheDate. We must #MoveTheDate

Yesterday, August 22, was Earth Overshoot Day. It marked the date in 2020 calendar at which Humanity has used up more of the Earth’s ecological resources and services than the planet can replenish in an entire year.

I usually post a note on Earth Overshoot Day's next day. Always wondering how best we should leverage this date, an important pointer for many of us.

This year is special, as for the first time since 1970 (when we were 3,7 Billions, and global economy consumed just what the Planet was able to provide in a year, with world GDP of $24 trillions -approx one fourth of current World GDP-) Earth Overshoot Day moves back in time, for more than 3 weeks, from last year’s 29th July 2019 to this year’s 22nd August 2020. It is not really that the world -or us- changed so much our ways of production & consumption, but COVID placed so many economies on Pause mode, that eventually we ended-up consuming and emitting much less.

When I reached-out to Mathis Wackernagel few years ago -after following his works from more than 20 years- to form a strategic partnership between Global Footprint Network and Schneider, and support their Ecological Footprint Calculator (https://www.footprintcalculator.org/), we were driven by the need to promote simple metrics to help us citizens, cities, countries, corporations, better gauge where their decisions and operations were compatible with a “One-Planet prosperity”, and where they were far off, and needed to change. We need to know the hard facts of what’s good and what’s not so good for a world under +1.5°C and one-planet resources & biodiversity conservation.

We need to #movethedate ... and good news is we actually can!: we can push it back 21 days by using existing energy efficiency technologies to reduce emissions from world's buildings and electricity production systems; by 17 days if we replace 50% of our global meat consumption with a plant-based diet; by 13 days if we replace 50% of our driving footprint with public transport and cycling, etc.

Every “Earth Overshoot Day” is a stark reminder of the need for Innovation. Please do not hesitate to walk through our just released e.book, co-developed between Global Footprint Network and Schneider Electric, suggesting ways and flagging opportunities to create a desirable future https://www.se.com/ww/en/about-us/sustainability/overshoot-day/

We need to quickly adopt “resource-efficient everything”, prolong life of every object, adopt new patterns of ownership, turn Circular, consume differently, whether BtB or BtC, etc.

On Earth Overshoot Day + 1, we can all make green resolutions, both on personal and professional fronts. On my end, I pledge to accelerate my professional focus onto my Company’s ecosystem, engaging more suppliers, more customers towards Carbon neutral and Resource frugal growth paths; and on a personal front I commit to go beyond vegetarianism and organic which have been reducing my footprint for 15 years, now walking away more from processed food, and adopting more bulk / no packaging stuff.

Instead of being saddened by such an always too early Overshoot Day, let us make it a day where each of us (as on January 1st) take strong resolutions. In this case…. Green Resolutions.

 #InventYourOwnWays #earthovershootday #circulareconomy #lifeison #schneiderelectric #actforgreen #ecologicalfootprint #globalfootprintnetwork