FODAFO governs the methodology of National Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts with the advice of its FODAFO Science Advisory Committee.
Methodology prescribes how the accounts are produced
National Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts are produced by a methodology which prescribes data sources and process used to acquire, integrate, and transform data to fit an annual framework related to all countries which have existed since 1961, together with prescribed processes to supplement missing data, identify and clean suspect data, evaluate data quality, and calculate metrics of ecological footprint and biocapacity.
This methodology is implemented through a codebase and informatics infrastructure managed by York University Ecological Footprint Initiative.
Annual updates reflect methodological improvements
The accounts’ methodology continues to evolve, with annual updates applied to a new edition of the accounts released by April 22 each year. The current edition of the accounts is the 2025 Edition released on April 22, 2025. The 2026 Edition is under development.
Methodological improvements build upon a foundational methodology detailed by Borucke et al (2023) and evolved until 2018 by Global Footprint Network (Lin et al, 2018). Since 2018, methodological improvements have been reviewed by the FODAFO Science Advisory Committee and approved by the FODAFO Board of Directors.
Methodological research and development is currently led by York University Ecological Footprint Initiative in partnership with University of Iceland and other institutes and researchers through the International Ecological Footprint Learning Lab.
About ecological footprint and biocapacity
Ecological footprint is a composite measure of ecological footprint of fishing grounds, built-up land, cropland, grazing land, forest products, and carbon uptake. Ecological footprint is calculated per each produced or traded commodity, or emission flow. These details are summed into aggregates related to national production, or imports, or exports. Ecological footprint of national consumption is derived as national production plus imports minus exports.
Biocapacity is a composite measure of fishing grounds, built-up land, cropland, grazing land, and forest biocapacity. Biocapacity is calculated for each type of land use and cover related on a national basis, and as a world-total.
Ecological footprint and biocapacity are reported in units of global hectares. Global hectares are national hectares converted to a standardized global unit reflecting average global biological production.