Despite over $150 billion being spent annually in development
globally, virtually nobody is tracking whether the achieved
progress can last, or whether it is becoming increasingly
fragile without the necessary access to nature’s resources. But
this is changing. The United Nations Development Programme’s
latest flagship publication, its Human Development Report 2013,
prominently features countries’ performance as proposed by
Global Footprint Network: how much human well-being do countries
generate (as measured by the UNDP’s Human Development Index) at
what level of resource demand (as measured by the Ecological
Footprint). The Report reads: “To sustain progress in human
development, far more attention needs to be paid to the impact
human beings are having on the environment. The goal is high
human development and a low ecological footprint per capita.
Only a few countries come close to creating such a globally
reproducible high level of human development without exerting
unsustainable pressure on the planet’s