WWF

Brussels, Belgium – The growing economic strength of the European Union has doubled the ecological
pressure on the planet in the past 30 years, according to a new report from WWF, the global conservation
organisation. Despite technological advances, environmental pressure has been growing at a faster rate than the European population, creating a deficit of natural resources for the rest of the world and for future
generations.

“Just a generation ago much of Europe was an ecological creditor, using fewer resources than it had,” said
Tony Long, Director of WWF’s European Policy Office. “But today Europe lives beyond its means. If the
world’s citizens lived as Europeans, we would need 2.6 planets to provide the necessary resources and absorb the waste.”

In the new report, “Europe 2007 – Gross Domestic Product and Ecological Footprint”, WWF has compared
EU countries’ performance in three key areas since 1971: economic growth measured by Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), pressure on natural resources measured by Ecological Footprint, and human development
measured by the UN’s Human Development Index.

“What we currently measure as development is a long way away from the EU and world’s stated aim of
sustainable development. This is because economic decisions routinely ignore natural capital expenditure,”
says WWF’s President Chief Emeka Anyaoku. “Economic indicators are essential, but without natural
resource accounting, ecological deficits will go unnoticed and ignored. It is as if we spent our money without
realizing that we are liquidating the planet’s capital.”

All but three EU Members – Finland, Latvia and Sweden – run an ecological deficit. Though these three
countries have greater ecological reserves than others, they do not necessarily manage their assets well.
Finland’s pressure on environment, for example, has grown by 70 per cent since 1975 and is now the highest among EU countries.

Germany, together with Bulgaria and Latvia, managed to reduce their ecological footprint in the past three
decades while growing in human development. Nevertheless, its footprint is two-and-a-half times its natural
resources and remains more than double the world average per person.

On the other hand, Greece and Spain are still expanding in both economic and consumption terms. Greece hasexperienced the highest growth of ecological footprint, accompanied by a limited growth in terms of human development.

France parallels the general EU trend. With improved technology, its resource availability is increasing but is
outpaced by growth of consumption, with the largest component being energy.

Among Eastern European countries, Hungary’s footprint – as other former centrally planned European
economies – has fallen since 1991, mainly because of economic shifts resulting from the ending of the Soviet era. Back in 1995, Slovenian citizens were practising, in global terms, sustainable development, but in 2003 Slovenia’s ecological footprint per capita had more than doubled while the development level rose by less than 5 per cent. Romania has the lowest ecological footprint in the EU-27, yet it remains an ecological debtor.