Planetary Boundaries
Environmental footprints - also known as consumption-based or demand-based indicators - aggregate environmental impacts and/or resource uses along global production-consumption chains according to a life cycle perspective. They allow quantifying the environmental impacts induced by the consumption of the inhabitants of a country wherever these impacts occur on Earth.
The Planetary Boundaries (Rockström et al., 2009) are a set of nine bio-physical limits of the Earth system that should be respected in order to maintain conditions favourable to further human development. Crossing the suggested limits would lead to a drastic change in human societies by disrupting some of the ecological bases underlying the current socio-economic system.
Publications
Dao, H., & Friot, D. (2025). Planetary Boundaries: Designing (fair?) limits to assess performance at the country level. Frontiers in Sustainable Resource Management, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsrma.2025.1537031
Friot, D., & Dao, H. (2019). Assessment of environmental footprints at the European level based on the planetary boundaries framework. Background report of the joint EEA/FOEN publication “Is Europe living within the limits of our planet?” Ecometrics, University of Geneva, GRID-Geneva. Link to report
Dao, H., Peduzzi, P., & Friot, D. (2018). National environmental limits and footprints based on the Planetary Boundaries framework: The case of Switzerland. Global Environmental Change, 52, 49–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.06.005
Dao, H., Friot, D., Peduzzi, P., Chatenoux, B., De Bono, A., & Schwarzer, S. (2015). Environmental Limits and Swiss Footprints Based on Planetary Boundaries. UNEP/GRID-Geneva & University of Geneva. Links to: Main report - Summary - Résumé - Zusammenfassung