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The ecological footprint of Santiago de Chile

Mathis Wackernagel a
a
PhD, Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad, Universidad Anhuac de Xalapa Apdo, Ver., Mexico.
Online Publication Date: 01 February 1998

To cite this Article Wackernagel, Mathis(1998)'The ecological footprint of Santiago de Chile',Local Environment,3:1,7 25
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Local Environment, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998

ARTICLE

The Ecological Footprint of Santiago

de Chile
MATHIS WACKERNAGEL
In the case of Santiago de Chile, this paper explains how the
ecological footprint of a city can be calculated and how this footprint can be
compared with the biological capacity available for human use. As ecological
footprints provide an easily communicable way of measuring the ecological
bottom-line condition for sustainability, it is a useful tool for promoting a
sustainable future. It is particularly useful for cities, as it is in cities where the
battle for sustainability will be won or lost. While cities are the largest
contributors to Gross World Product, they are also the largest consumers and
waste producers. This is particularly critical in a world that is already
overloaded with human activities and, in addition, is rapidly urbanizing. To
make cities win the battle for sustainability we must understand the economics
of cities, not just in monetary terms, but in terms of resource allocation. Human
activities depend on the provision of resources, the absorption of waste and
other essential life-support functions only nature can supply. Each of these
services occupies land and water areas, and we can therefore calculate how
much ecologically productive area is necessary to exclusively support these
human activities. This area is called the 'ecological footprint'. The rough
assessment presented here shows its application as a motivational tool for
developing more sustainable citiescities with a better quality of life and
smaller ecological footprints. However, the presented method provides a basis
for more detailed analyses which would be essential for the planning of such
cities. Still, this paper shows a matrix that lists which activity occupies which
kind of ecological function and a distribution of footprints among the citizens of
Santiago. The corresponding spreadsheet with all the calculations and references is available from ICLEI's website or it can be obtained directly from the
author.

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ABSTRACT

Why Measure the Ecological Footprint of Cities?

For a sustainable world, we need to secure people's quality of life within the
means of nature. Not living within our ecological means will lead to the
destruction of humanity's only home. Inadequate quality of life caused by a lack
Mathis Wackernagel, PhD, Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad, Universidad Anhuac
de Xalapa Apdo Postal 653, 91000 Xalapa, Ver., Mexico. Fax: 19-04-53 Email:
mathiswa @ edg. net. mx
1354-9839/98/010007-19 1998 Carfax Publishing Ltd.

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M. Wackernagel
of resources, environmental health threats, social violence or injustice will cause
conflict and erode our social fabric.
To plan effectively for sustainability we need to measure our current
condition. On the one hand, we need to know whether people's quality of life
is being maintained. On the other, we need to start monitoring whether we are
living within our ecological means or at what rate humanity, or a nation, is
depleting the biosphere's natural capital. After all, people are a part of nature
and depend on its steady supply of the basic requirements for life: energy for
heat and mobility, wood for housing, furniture and paper products, fibres for
clothes, quality food and water for healthy living, ecological sinks for waste
absorption and many life-support services for securing living conditions on our
planet.
Rapid human expansion as witnessed since the Second World War has
reached a point where humanity's ecological load has exceeded what nature can
regenerate (Wackernagel et ah, 1997; Worldwatch Institute, 1997b).1 In other
words, humanity is now the main occupant of the world's ecological capacity.
The conventional strategy to maximise society's resource throughput and thereby
lift people's standard of living has outlasted its usefulness; in an ecologically
overloaded world, further increase of resource use leaves us and future generations poorer once we include the loss of natural capital in the equation. The new
challenge is to provide high-quality living for everybody without eroding our
ultimate wealth: the natural capital of the world.
This battle for sustainability will be won or lost in the cities for four main
reasons:
people power, in population numbers alone, cities will soon dominate on the
world scale. Today, they already house 45% of humanityand by 2025 there
will be 61% of us living in cities. Chile today already comprises 84% of
city-dwellers, and its cities are growing annually at 1.8% (World Resources
Institute, 1996);
political power: most economic and political decisions are made in cities. As
well, cities contain the business headquarters, the main educational centres
and the bulk of the middle class, all politically active sectors. With the
growing disparities, cities are also increasingly the scene of contradictions and
conflict;
economic power, cities are the largest contributors to Gross World Product.
For example, the Santiago de Chile metropolitan area, with 36% of the
national population, generates at least 41% of Chile's national income {Plan
Regulador Metropolitano de Santiago, 1994; Compendio estadistico 1996);
ecological impact: with all their economic success, cities inevitably become
the major modes of resource consumption and waste production, depending on
increasing amounts of hinterland to secure their needs (Folke et ah, 1997).
Furthermore, the concentration of waste products is directly endangering
people's health, particularly where cities have not been able to install adequate
; waste infrastructure and contaminant reduction.
To make cities win the battle for sustainability, we must first understand some
basic urban resource economicsnot primarily its monetary dimensions
8

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The Ecological Footprint of Santiago

FIGURE 1. The ecological footprint. Note: Any human economy, city or household is an ecological
organism much like the cow in the pasture. To maintain itself, the economy needs to "eat" resources
and eventually all this intake becomes waste and has to leave the organism again. To address the
ecological bottom-line of sustainability we need to consider how much nature our cities use to secure
their intake of resources, the absorption of their waste and the maintenance of other essential
life-support functions which they require and only nature can supply. Each of these services occupies
land and water areas, and we can therefore calculate how much ecologically productive space is
necessary to exclusively support these human activities. (Illustration by Phil Testemale.)

but rather its biophysical scope (Rees, 1992). More precisely, to plan for a future
consistent with the ecological bottom-line condition for sustainability we need to
consider how much nature our cities use to secure their intake of resources, the
absorption of waste and the maintenance of other essential life-support functions
they require and only nature can supply. Each of these services occupies land
and water areas, and we can therefore calculate how much ecologically productive space is necessary to exclusively support these human activities. This area
is called the ecological footprint of that human activity (Wackernagel & Rees,
1996).
What Footprints Measure
Ecological footprint calculations are based on two simple facts: first, one can
keep track of most of the resources people consume and many of the wastes
people generate; second, most of these resource and waste flows can be
converted to a biologically productive area necessary to provide these functions.

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M. Wackernagel
Hence, footprint analyses offer a measure for ecological sustainability. These
measurements of energy and resource throughput can help policy planners assess
a population's ecological impact and compare this impact with nature's capacity
to regenerate. In other words, footprints contrast human load with nature's
carrying capacity. By comparing a city's footprint with the biological capacity
available in the world, within the national territory or in the region surrounding
the city, this assessment offers a benchmark for today's ecological performance,
i identifies the challenges for lightening a city's ecological load and allows
i planners to document gains as a city moves toward sustainability. By documenting the city's current ecological dependence, we have a base-line on which to
build scenarios for our future.
i Obviously, cities occupy more area than the physical space on which they
jare built. This in itself is a trivial insight. The good news is that if cities
are well organised, their per capita footprint may become quite small while
i still providing a high quality of life. In other words, having footprintsor
| having footprints larger than the city surfaceis not the actual sustainability challenge; humans must consume products and services of nature, and
j therefore human impact on the earth is inevitable. The challenge is another
lone: how to reduce humanity's total ecological load as it is starting to exceed
Iglobal carrying capacity. This points to cities' strategic intervention point:
! rather than accommodating the continuous expansion of resource-hungry cities,
I we must start planning for resource thrifty and liveable citiesand the
I footprint can provide a yardstick to monitor whether we move in the right
direction.
\ We acknowledge and emphasise that the strength of ecological footprint
lassessments is not their precision. Their main task is to visualise human impact
ion the earth. Our basic philosophy, rather than to maximise precision, has been
to neither exaggerate the ecological footprints of a population, nor to underestimate the biological productivity of an area. Therefore, more advanced and more
complete studies may lead to larger footprints. These larger footprints do not
necessarily mean that consumption has gone up or that older assessments were
wrong. Rather new results point to improvements in the assessment. In consequence, one must be careful when comparing the results of various footprint
studies unless the same methodologies are used.
| Ecological footprints are essentially 'big picture' tools that summarise a
variety of human impacts, provide an understanding of its magnitude and allow
for a comparison with the available biological capacity. Various ecological
aspects are still left out in current assessments which include: persistent contaminants such as DDT or lead, biodegradable contaminants such as human
excrement or nitrates, lasting ecological degradation, fresh water use and ozone
depletion. The energy footprint of fossil fuel is calculated via the land necessary
for CO2 absorption. Nuclear energy is considered to occupy the same footprint
per energy unit as fossil fuel for two reasons: first, rough estimates of already
lost bioproductivity caused by accidents (mainly associated with the Chernobyl
reactor) compared with the total produced nuclear energy show similarly large
footprints. Second, as a parallel argument, non-subsidised nuclear power is not
economically competitive and will most likely be replaced by (non-sustainable)
10

The Ecological Footprint of Santiago

fossil fuel. More discussion on methodological limitations and the calculation of
energy footprints can be found in other publications.2

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Calculating Santiago de Chile's Footprint

The purpose of this study was to provide an overview perspective on Santiago de
Chile's ecological load on the planet. This is new territory as most ecological
footprint studies so far have focused on countries or processes. The few crude
estimates for cities so far have been mainly extrapolated according to their
population share (Folke et al., 1997). The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) commissioned this study as an introductory piece to
accompany its Sustainable Santiago project. Boundary conditions for this footprint
project consisted of providing a rough estimate for Santiago within a short period
of time and at moderate costs.3 Therefore, the case presented here, built exclusively
on readily available data, is primarily of didactic value, which points, however,
towards a method for more reliable assessment and applications as a planning tool.
The National Footprint Calculation as a Foundation for the City Footprint
National footprints are among the most reliable estimates as most of the
necessary data for footprint calculations such as ecological productivity, resource
production and trade are already measured by national statistical institutes.
Therefore, they become the basis for city calculations. Most of the data used at
the country level are available through United Nations publications.4 The
national assessment for Chile is based on 1993 data, the latest year for which we
had a complete set of data available. The entire assessment is documented on a
spreadsheet called 'santiago.xls' of 200 lines and 15 columns. It is available
from the World Wide Web http://www.iclei.org/iclei/santiago.htm and in it, the
main resource and energy flows at the national and city level are analysed. Table
1 shows a simplified version of the spreadsheet. To understand the mechanics of
the calculation, it is easiest to consult this EXCEL spreadsheet file while reading
the following description. Also, some cells in this spreadsheet file contain notes
that explain more about the calculations and their assumptions.
The lines of the spreadsheet represent resource types, while the columns
contain the productivity,5 the production (in both biophysical and dollar terms),
import, export and consumption of these resources. The spreadsheet is composed
of four main areas. The upper part of the spreadsheet (up to line 45) assesses
Chile's consumption of biotic resources (or its sub-products).6 Consumption is
calculated by adding imports to national production and subtracting exports.
With biological productivity data based on the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO), estimates of average world yield, consumption
and waste absorption are translated into the occupied ecologically productive
land and water areasthe footprint components. For example, in the case of
potatoes, the footprint component would be
s

Y i e l d potatoes

- ExpOltpotatoes

. .

= Footprint componentpotatoes

11

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TABLE 1. Simplified calculation spreadsheet for Chile

2 Calculation of the Chilean's average Eeological Footprint (1993 data)

population of Chile:

13 822 000 in 1993

14 622 354 in 1997

3
4 LAND AND SEA AREA ACCOUNTING
(biotic resources)
Import
5 CATEGORIES
Yield
Production
6 units if not specified
[kg/ha]
[t]
M
1
(global average)1
8 FOODS
. meat. Yield for animal products from pasture
(expressed in average units)
74
642 000
38 640
10 . . bovine, goat, mutton and
buffalo meat
33
241000
35 017
11 . . non-bovine, non-goat, non-mutton.
3 623
non-buffalo
401000
12 .dairy
1650000
60 900
13 . . m i l k
502
1650 000
14 ..cheese
50
2 891
15 . . butter
50
3 199
16 . marine fish
29
17 . cereals
2 744
2 643 000
956 821
525 600
18 ..wheat
19 . . cereal preparations
20 . animal feed
2 744
142 864
18 (KM
21 , v e g & fruit
216061
5446 000
22 . . veg etc
23 . . fresh fruit
145 157
24 . roots and tubers
12 607
933 000
25 .pulses
852
94 000
5 497
26 . coffee & tea
566
23 238
27 .cocoa
454
28 .sugar
4 893
451000
1853
29 .oil seed (Incl. soya)
1856
36 000
5 170
30 TIMBER [in roundwood
27 680 842
equivalent, mVha/yr, m 3 ]
1.99
352 916
31 . roundwood [mVha, m3]
waste factors 32 241 000
4000
32 . fire wood [ m \ calculated from
its weight]
0.53
9 627 000
1000
3.00
3113 000
6000
33 . sawnwood [m3]
34 . wood-based panels [m 3 ]
4.50
613 000
19O00
1.9S
35 . wood pulp [tl
1867 000
3000
36 . paper and paperboard [t]
1.35
572 000
177 000
39 OTHER CROPS
40 .tobacco
1548
20 000
828
41 . cotton
1000
42 .jute
1500
43 .rubber
1000
44 .wool
15
45 .hide
74

Export

Consumption

14410

666 230

3 497

272 520

10913
19 694
16 854

393 710
1 691 206

(alread)' in cereals)
0.244
pasture

31
3 403 074

1.067
0.090

sea
arable land

- 6 1 9 238
3 972 921

-0.016
0.016

arable land
arable land

932 722
51914
23 020

0.005
0.004
0.003
0.000
0.007
0.002

arable
arable
arable
arable
arable
arable

0.585

forest

Footprint component
[ha/cap]

0.601

pasture

269
15
consumption in [kg/cap]
196 747
1300
88 454
762 102
1 689 139
183 351
1210146
278
47 583
218
10
978

452 843
40192

11936 000
5 435 000

16 097 758
26810000

820 000
200 000
1480 000
156 000

9628 000
2 229 000
432 000
390000
593 000

3 109

17719
27 977
271
10184
15 029
30 533

33%
45%
13%
4%

land
land
land
land
land
land

5%

of
of
of
of
of

cons,
cons,
cons,
cons,
cons,

fire wood
sawn wood
panels
mines
paper

0.O01
0.002
O.OOO
0.001
0.072
0.030

arable land
arable land
arable land
arable land
pasture
pasture

8-

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TABLE 1. Continued
B
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
55
56
57
59
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147

ENERGY BALANCE:
glob. aver.
[Gj/ha/yr] Energy type
55 coal consumption:
71 liquid fossil fuel consumption:
93 fossil gas consumption:
71 nuclear energy consumption (thermal):
71 energy embodied in net imported goods:
1000 hydro-electricity consumption:

Specific energy footprint

coal
liquid fossil fuel
fossil gas
nuclear energy (thermal)
assumed to be fossil energy
hydro-electric energy

[Gj/yr/cap]
9
18
8
0
3
5

Footprint component in [ha/cap]

0.1634 fossil energy land for coal
0.2498 fossil energy land for liquid fuel
0.0829 fossil energy land for fossil gas
0.0000 fossil energy land for nuclear energy
0.0410 energy in net imports
0.0046 built-up area for hydro power

SUMMARY
DEMAND
FOOTPRINT (per capita)
Category

total

fossil energy
built-up area
arable land
pasture
forest
sea

[ha/cap/
0.5
0.0
0.1
0.9
0.6
1.1

TOTAL used

3.3

equivalency equivalent
factor
total
[ha/cap]
[-]
1.1
0.6
0.1
2.8
0J
2.8
0.5
0.5
1.1
0.7
0.2
0.2
2.4

SUPPLY
EXISTING BIO-CAPACITY WITHIN CHILE (per capita)
ON THE PLANET (per capita)
Category
yield
national yield adjusted global area yield adjusted area
factor
area
equiv. area
(for 1993)
(for 1993)
[ha/cap]
[ha/cap]
[ha/cap]
[ha/cap]
CO2 absorption land
0.0
0.0
0.00
0.00
built-up area
1.5
0.0
0.1
0.06
0.17
arable land
1.5
0.3
U
0.26
0.74
0.7
1.0
0.4
0.61
0.33
pasture
0.5
1.2
0.7
0.92
1.05
forest
1.0
5.4
1.2
0.56
0.12
sea
TOTAL existing
7.9
3.6
2.4
2.4
TOTAL available (minus 12% for biodiversity)
3.2
2.1

8
9
a.
3

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M. Wackernagel
The energy component for potatoes needed for agriculture (tractors, fertilisers,
pesticides, etc.) and processing (transportation, packaging, distribution and
cooking) would already be included in the energy balance of the country and
does not need to be calculated separately.
The following part, from line 48 to 131, analyses the energy requirements
of Chile. First, it lists the fossil and hydroelectric energy consumption
of Chile's main sectors (up to line 74). This energy account needs to
be corrected for trade: on the one hand, some of the energy is consumed
to produce export goods while on the other hand, Chile imports goods
whose production energy has already been invested elsewhere. The spreadsheet provides an energy balance of these traded goods between lines 75 and
131. This balance adjusts the amount of directly consumed energy within
Chile by the embodied energy that enters and leaves the country through
the import and export of finished products. In Chile's case, net trade leads to
the export of embodied energy at the rate of 3 Gigajoules per year and per
person.
In the second to last part, Chile's footprint and its ecological capacity are
summarised in a box with two sections (lines 134 to 147). The left section
itemises the ecological footprint in six ecological categories and gives the
total. Comparison between these ecological categories is not appropriate since
they are of unequal productive capacity. For example, land categorised as
arable has a much higher potential for biological production than land only
suitable for pasture. Therefore, to allow for a more meaningful comparison
between footprints and bio-capacity within as well as among nations, 'equivalence factors' are introduced. These equivalence factors scale these land
categories proportional to their productivity. More precisely, they provide
information about the land category's relative productivity as compared with
world average land (such average land would represent the factor 1). For
example, the arable land factor of 3.2 says that arable land can produce 3.2
times more biomass than world average land. Through this scaling, the total
bio-capacity of the world is not distorted: the scaled global total adds up to the
same amount as the global total expressed in true physical spaces. This
comparison is shown in the left subsection of the box entitled 'global biocapacity'.
; All figures represent all results in per capita figures. This makes people from
different places more directly comparable. Still, national aggregates are easy to
calculate from the per capita footprints. Multiply the per capita data by 14
million people (Chile's population) and you will receive the total ecological
footprint of Chile.
i The right section of the result box shows how much biologically productive
capacity exists within the country, and for comparison in the world. As the
productivity of Chile's land areas is higher than world average, its physical land
area is multiplied by the factor by which the local productivity exceeds the world
average (second column in the right box). We call this factor the 'yield factor'.7
A yield factor of 1.5, for example, means that the local productivity of this
ecosystem category is 50% higher than world averageabsorbing 50% more
CO2 or producing 50% more potatoes per hectare. Now the footprint and the
14

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The Ecological Footprint of Santiago

ecological capacity existing within Chile are both measured in the same units
and can be directly compared.
The section to the right makes the same capacity assessment for the globe. As
shown, a global area of 2.4 ha of biologically productive space per person
existed on this planet in 1993. In the left column, this information is presented
in physically true terms. The right column (printed in bold) lists the same
statistics in units adjusted to world average land. These are obtained by
multiplying the physically true spaces by the equivalency factors. Note that both
columns add up to the same total.
Not all the existing ecological capacity is available for human use as this area
should also give room to the 30 million fellow species with whom humanity
shares this planet. According to the World Commission on Environment and
Development, at least 12% of the ecological capacity (representing all ecosystem
types) should be preserved for biodiversity protection (WCED, 1987, pp. 147,
166). According to most conservation biologists, this 12% share may be
insufficient for securing biodiversity,8 but conserving more may be politically
unfeasible. That is why we define, both at the global and national level, the
available ecological capacity optimistically as 88% of the existing space.
Accepting 12% as a pragmatic number for biodiversity preservation, one can
calculate that from the approximately 2.4 ha per capita of biologically productive
area that exist, only 2.1 ha per capita, at most, are available for human use,
according to the 1994 figures. Taking the 1997 population figures, this space
shrinks to 2.0 and is expected to be reduced even more in the future. Still, for
the time being, we may use these 2 ha as a benchmark for comparing people's
ecological footprints.
The last part of the spreadsheet (lines 150-192) presents the results in a
'consumption land-use matrix', first for Chile, and then as described in the
section below, for Santiago. This matrix not only shows the land uses as listed
in the result box but assigns them to a variety of human activities. The lines of
the consumption land-use matrix on the left side represent various consumption
categories and the headings across the top show the corresponding land-use
categories. 'Fossil energy', as used in the matrix, means how much land would
be necessary for absorbing the carbon dioxide released by current fossil fuel
consumption (coal, oil and natural gas). Alternatively, it could be calculated
according to the land area necessary to produce a biological substitute. This
alternative approach would lead to even higher land requirements. 'Built-up
land' means land that is no longer available for natural production because it has
been paved over or used for buildings. 'Goods and Services' includes everything
from non-edible products like soap or radios to the resources needed for services
such as heating hospitals or producing paper and electricity to prepare bank
statements.
The most complete statistics on the consumption by sector exist for energy
use. From the footprint analysis, it also becomes obvious which spaces are used
for food. Analysing the flows within the forest economy, as done in the resource
accounting section of the spreadsheet, provides the estimates for the amount of
the timber products used in housing or for consumer goods. This information on
which human activity is occupying how much of each ecosystem type is then
15

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M. Wackernagel

Other areas of the metropolitan area

Built-up area of Santiago
FIGURE 2. Santiago's aggregate footprint compared with the city surface. With a footprint of at least
2.6 ha per capita, Santiago's total ecological footprint is 16 times larger than the metropolitan area
; and 300 times the actual built-up surface of Santiago. Note: Illustration by Iliana Pamanes.

summarised in the matrix. For instance, to use the matrix to find out how much
arable land is used to produce the average Chilean's cotton for his or her
(non-synthetic) clothes, you would read across the 'clothes' line to the 'arable
land' column, and find that 0.014 ha (or 140 m2 ) of world average land is
needed (in Table 2 the figures are rounded to two digits after the decimal point,
therefore the table shows '0.01').
Calculating the Footprint of Santiago de Chile with the Help of the Consumption
Land-use Matrix
The estimate of the national figures becomes the starting point for assessing the
city's footprint. These national estimates are quite reliable as official data on
national production and the import and export of all major resources and goods
are readily available. For sub-national assessments, however, local trade and
consumption statistics do not exist. Still, the footprints of a regional or municipal
population can be extracted from the national footprint by comparing to what
extent the consumption pattern in the region or municipality differs from the
national average and adjusting the national footprint accordingly. This indirect
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The Ecological Footprint of Santiago

assessment leads to more precise results than an estimate based on a limited set
of local data. The reason is that national statistics cover a large part of human
activities and include many indirect effects of consumption such as public
expenditures, waste in the production and distribution process or recycling of
waste, all of which can get lost in analyses of local activities. In addition, most
municipalities and cities collect sufficient data on car use, housing, energy
consumption, income or living costs in their area, which allows for a comparison
of local to national consumption patterns.
In the case of Santiago de Chile, few local consumption data were readily
available. Our estimates were built on some key data provided by Monica
Baeza from ICLEI (Latin America). Still, they are sufficient for a first
approximation and a first step to a more detailed analysis. Below are the key
data which helped us compare Santiago Metropolitan Area with Chile's
national average. In essence, these are the data which enable us to distinguish
the lifestyle of Santiago, the metropolitan area, from that of Chile, the country.
With few exceptions, the data used come from official sources. However,
people from the municipality of Santiago and from the Instituto de Ecologia
Polftica in Santiago had the feeling that the data underestimate Santiago's share
of national consumption. In the next step of the project we would need to
clarify these data in collaboration with the statisticians who published them.
Here are the data:
According to the Plan Regulador Metropolitano de Santiago (1994),
the Santiago Metropolitan Area, in 1992, had 4 756 663 inhabitants. In
other words, Santiago houses 35.6% of the national population of
13 348 000.
With 1 048 615 households in the metropolitan area, Santiago's average
household size adds up to 4.5 members per household (Plan Regulador
Metropolitano de Santiago, 1994).
The metropolitan area contains 791 581 ha, of which 701 619 ha are ecologically protected. The consolidated area of Santiago measures 41 215 ha. The
remaining 48 747 ha are equally shared among soon to be developed land,
urban growth reserves and agricultural uses (Plan Regulador Metropolitano de
Santiago, 1994).
The road space in Santiago occupies 3600 ha (calculated from Plan Regulador
Metropolitano de Santiago, 1994).
Santiago has 735 167 motorised vehicles out of Chile's total fleet of 1 632 283
vehicles. Therefore, we assume that Santiago is responsible for 45% of Chile's
traffic volume (Compendio Estadistico, 1996).
The Santiago Metropolitan Area produces and consumes 41.5% of the
nation's GNP (Compendio Estadistico, 1996); still, according to some statistics, the average income in the Santiago Metropolitan area is about the same
as that in the other 12 regions of Chile if the minimum wage can be used as
a measure (Compendio Estadistico, 1996).
Chilean households spend 32% of their income on Food (Compendio Estadistico 1996). According to Monica Baeza, food in Santiago de Chile is about
20% more expensive than in rural areas.
17

M. Wackernagel
TABLE 2. The footprint of the average inhabitant of Santiago in hectares per person is presented
here in the consumption land-use: matrix.

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Factor
Food
.vegetarian
.animal products
.water
Housing and Furniture
Transport
.road
.rail
.air
.coastal and waterways
Goods
.paper production
.clothes (non-synthetic
.tobacco
.other
Total

Fossil
energy

Built-up
area

0.11

Arable
land
0.35
0.32

9
9

Pasture

Forest

0.75
0.75

0.24

Sea

Total

0.24

1.45
0.32

0.99

0.03
0.04
0.25
0.18
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.43
0.18
0.00

0.11
0.04

0.01
0.00

0.00

0.15

0.07

0.02
0.13

0.07

0.49

0.82

0.16
0.29
0.18
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.74
0.27
0.08
0.13
0.25

0.09
0.09

0.25
0.83

0.02

0.24

0.24

2.64

; Note: The population of the Santiago Metropolitan Area was 4 756 663 in 1992.

;
;
!
i
;
\

The daily waste generation per person in Santiago is about 1 kg. This
kilogram contains 550 g of organic waste, 140 g of paper and cardboard,
100 g plastic (which adds up to 37 kg plastic per year or 1.8 Gj per year per
person), 40 g of textiles (or 15 kg per person per year, cotton?), and 170 g of
other materials {Plan Regulador Metropolitano de Santiago, 1994).
According to Monica Baeza, the yearly heating energy used per person
amounts to about 2 Gj.
According to Monica Baeza, most houses in Santiago de Chile are built of
bricks and concrete, with only about 1 m3 of wood components.

Clearly, more detailed comparative data could provide a better resolution when
analysing the ecological impact of Santiago de Chile. For example, figures on
actual energy consumption in transportation (or kilometres driven per car) or
more precise data on the quantity and quality of the Santiago housing stock
Jwould improve the assessment in these categories. Still, these data provide some
indication on how to adjust the national consumption land-use matrix specifically
to Santiago's, as shown in Table 2. Each cell of the matrix is recalculated with
the Santiago specific data. For example, the transportation footprint is calculated
assuming that Santiago's share of the national car fleet is the same as Santiago's
share of consumed transportation energy. Or, the housing line takes into account
the heating needs and the prevailing construction type of Santiago. Please note
that the figures refer to the year 1993. For more details on the calculation,
consult the matrix in the spreadsheet file as it contains the figures and formulae.
18

The Ecological Footprint of Santiago

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There, the most important assumptions and calculations are described in notes
attached to the spreadsheet cells.
Assuming that the applied local data are correctand there is good reason to
believe that the consumption share of Santiago as shown by the statistics is an
underestimatethe footprint of the average Santiagan extends 2.6 ha. This is
higher than the 2.4 ha average footprint of Chile. This is in spite of the capital
city's significantly lower wood consumption. In all other categories, however
(such as energy or food), consumption in the capital city is higher. Still, the total
footprint of the city is 16 times larger than the metropolitan area (including the
ecological reserves), or even 300 times larger than the actually occupied space
of the city.
Ecological Footprint Distribution in Santiago de Chile
Of course, not everybody in Santiago de Chile has the same size of footprint.
Using consumption/income distribution statistics published by the World Bank
(World Bank, 1996), we estimated the size of footprint by income classes. One
crude assumption is that the distribution for Santiago is the same as for all of
Chile (see Table 3). In addition, these monetary statistics of income distribution are only coarse proxies of the varying standard of living within a
societybut the only ones available internationally. Even though money flows
are rarely correlated with quality of life, as pointed out extensively by the
literature criticising Gross National Product (Daly & Cobb, 1989) they are
closely linked to resource flows (Hall et al., 1986; Kaufmann, 1992). Still,
these income distribution measures underestimate the gap between rich and
poor as various income benefits of the rich are hidden and escape most
statistical measurement attempts. These hidden benefits include capital gains,
savings abroad or informal activities of the wealthy. On the other hand,
monetary spending may exaggerate differences in footprint size: typically,
additional income may lead to a shift from quantity (or resource-intensive)
products to more quality (or labour-intensive) goods and services. In the best
case, these two effects may cancel each other out. Therefore, we assume that
in this comparison (in a simplistic way), income is proportional to the
footprint. For follow-up studies, it would be particularly interesting to analyse
the range of footprints within a given income level. For instance, purchasing
by more affluent people could lead towards a more global consumption of
resources (large footprint) or to the use of more local labour. Such refinements
in the assessment would move the footprint analysis closer from its more
pedagogic use today towards being a relevant management tool.
Interpreting the Results
The footprint of Santiago tells us the amount of ecological capacity appropriated
by the city to sustain its functioning. In other words, it shows the share of the
global capacity of the biosphere to keep Santiago running. It also enables us to
compare to what extent this urban consumption can be covered by the ecological
capacity of its region or the nation. In a world with growing ecological
19

M. Wackernagel
TABLE 3. Footprint distribution in Santiago according to economic levels (in hectares per person)

, Factor
Consumption compared to
national average (in %)

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Ecological footprint
(hectares per person)

Lowest Lowest
10%
20%

14
0.4

18
0.5

Second Third Fourth Highest

quintile quintile quintile 20%

33
0.9

55
1.4

91
2.4

Highest
10%

305

461

12

Note: For example, this table shows that the average person in the fourth quintile (60% of the
population are poorer, 20% of the population are richer) would earn (or spend) 91 % of the average
income, resulting in a footprint of 2.4 ha per person.

overshoot, having sufficient ecological capacity becomes the most important

asset for a country.
Please note, however, that the footprint is not a health indicator of the
; environment within the city boundaries as most of the ecological capacity to
i sustain it lies outside the city. For example, there are some (wealthy) cities that
I have been able to preserve splendid local settings and restore high water and air
quality. Often, however, these cities are only able to protect their local environment thanks to their purchasing power with which they can appropriate additional ecological capacity from somewhere else. From there, they receive the
resources to build a sophisticated infrastructure. Or, they use these faraway
capacities to absorb their waste. Local air pollution, often misconceived as an
^environmental problem', is therefore not a matter of ecological capacity, but,
equally important, one of quality of life and human health. Sustainable cities
:must resolve, therefore, the challenge of securing a high quality of life, including
a healthy local environment without eroding the ecological capacities beyond its
boundaries.
Chile's footprint amounts to 2.4 ha per capita. In comparison, the average
Mexican's footprint is 2.6 ha; that of a Swiss, 4.9 ha; of a Canadian, 7.8 ha; and
of an Indian, 0.8 ha (Wackernagel et al., 1997). Chile's terrestrial footprint of 2.2
ha is as big as the 2.2 ha of ecologically productive land per person available
;within its borders. In fact, according to these estimates (assuming for its
temperate forest a similar productivity to that of average European forests) Chile
has just a little more terrestrial ecological capacity than what is available on a
per capita basis worldwide. However, Chile, with its long coast line, is well
endowed with sea areait has about nine times more per capita than the world
average.
Chile is in the notable situation of consuming less than what its productive
areas can regenerate. The country is, ecologically, well endowed in comparison
with the global situation. Thanks to its sea area, Chile has still a national
ecological remainder of 0.8 ha per capita, even though it consumes 20% more
than what is available per capita worldwide. Chile's consumption, however, is
growingas documented in Table 4. If Chile's resource use continued to expand
only at its current rate of demographic growth (1.6% per year), implying no
20

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The Ecological Footprint of Santiago

increase in its per capita consumption, it would take approximately 17 years for
Chile to reach a level at which all of the ecological productivity within its
territory would be occupied for its own consumption.9 If Chileans take on the
wasteful lifestyles which are prevalent in the industrial world, they will reach
this point much sooner. Within 17 years, the world population may most likely
have grown to 7.7 billion people with 1.5 ha of ecologically productive land
available per person. Already today, one can show that it is far easier for a
country to be competitive if it does not run an ecological deficit.10 In a future
world which will be even more loaded with human activities, ecological assets
will be even more essential. Therefore, it may be a more secure and prosperous
national strategy for Chile to curb its national ecological footprint expansion,
thereby protecting its ecological wealth and economic advantage. As these
ecological services will be in great demand in the future, they will become an
increasing asset to Chile.
Next Steps for City Footprints
As pointed out, this assessment of Santiago de Chile's ecological footprint and
its surrounding biological capacity is still a rough estimate of the real situation.
The calculation was based on a narrow set of local data and many crude
assumptions. However, it already provides us with an insight into the magnitude
of Santiago's ecological impact and dependence on the biosphere.
The present assessment could be improved in various steps: first, the national
assessment could be reworked using a more complete set of national statistics
rather than depending on the more general UN data. Second, with more local
data available concerning aspects of city life such as housing, consumption of
goods and services or transportation, these sub-systems could be analysed in
more detail. Third, local data on waste generation, waste management, water
management and wastewater treatment would allow the inclusion of additional
ecological services in the footprint. Fourth, data on local productivity and yields
would allow for a more precisely determined local productivity. For these more
detailed analysesperhaps even including historical developments of consumption and land usesa GIS based system (computer-aided geographic information
system) would allow the inclusion of much more analytical flexibility into the
data set. Historical developments or the implication of land-use changes could be
rapidly traced and compared with other trends. GIS systems could also help to
document more accurately city infrastructure and surrounding ecological capacities, thereby clarifying the various types and quantities of urban resource
consumption and waste production.
This case study of Santiago de Chile illustrates a method to document a city's
ecological dependence on natural capital. While this first assessment is still quite
simple because of a limited amount of local data that we were able to gather for
this project, this same method, using a richer data set, would serve as a base-line
analysis for planners and the public to identify saving potentials, measuring
progress toward sustainability and comparing trends and scenarios for the future.
More complete footprint assessments, which we are in the process of developing,
will be useful for analysing key issues concerning sustainability and cities. They
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to
to

TABLE 4. Growth trends in Chile"

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

1997

Total population
(in 000s)

6 747

7 595

8 566

9 494

10 334

11143

12 076

13 154

14 262

14 691

Total urban
population
(in 000s)

4 268

5 152

6 142

7 142

101

9 053

9 978

10 954

11966

Automobile
registrations
(in 000s)

1 030a

1 632"

Gross domestic
product per capita
(in US$)

887

699

Commercial energy
consumption
(in Petajoules)

316

286

316

300

513

539 C

47

51

55

62

76

84a

Traditional fuel
consumption
(in Petajoules)

8OQ

2 474 1363 2 310

Notes: Tor the year 1991, "from the Compendio estadi'stico 1996, cfor the year 1993.

3 302

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The Ecological Footprint of Santiago

will show to what extent a given level of quality of life will require higher or
lower footprints in cities as compared with the countryside, and what determines
these differences. In addition, they will point out what opportunities intelligent
urbanisation offers to reduce the footprint of human activities and lifestyles, yet
remain within ecological carrying capacity. No doubt the main contribution of
current ecological footprint assessments is strongest on the motivational side as
it enables people to perceive, in meaningful ways, the necessity to maintain
natural capital for their future well-being. Equally important is that these
resource assessments identify humanity's ecological boundary conditions within
which a sustainable human economy has to operate. In this way, the ecological
footprint identifies, at the city level, core sustainability challenges and helps find
ways which secure people's quality of life within the means of nature.
Acknowledgements
This study was commissioned and funded by the International Council for Local
Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). Many thanks go to Monica Baeza, Raga
Chandra, Jaime Valenzuela and Maria Elena Zuninga from ICLEI Latin America
and Sandra Makinson from ICLEI for collecting the data of Santiago de Chile
and commenting on the report, Jeb Brugmann, Secretary General of ICLEI for
encouraging this assessment, Alejandro Callejas Linares, Alex Long and Anna
Knaus for helping the author prepare this paper and the calculations, Larry
Onisto for comments and support, and lliana Pmanes for producing the
illustrations. For questions, suggestions or interest in the development of other
municipal footprint analyses, please contact the author at the Centre for Sustainability Studies in Mexico.
Notes
1. For a calculation of humanity's aggregate impact see Wackernagel et al. (1997). Copies, including the disk
with the spreadsheets, are obtainable through ICLEI (fax: (416) 392-1478, email: < iclei@iclei.org > ). For
a preliminary version of this report, see the Earth Council's homepage at: http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/rio/focus/report/english/footprnt.htm. There, a zip archive of the report text and accompanying data files by
country (Excel 4.0 format) is also available for download directly from that page.
2. For a more lengthy discussion, consult Wackernagel & Rees (1996). Assessments by others include: Mns
Nilsson (1997). Approaches to an Earth Audit (Sweden, Stockholm Environment Institute); Earth Council,
Costa Rica; United Nations Environment Programme, Kenya. International Institute for Environment and
Development (1995) Citizen Action to Lighten Britain's Ecological Footprints, Report to the UK
Department of the Environment; Andrew R.B. Ferguson (1997) Limits to population: the ecological
constraints, draft chapter for Union of Concerned Scientists, Commanding Spaceship Earth; Susan Mercott
(1997) Sustainable development: a meta review of definitions, principles, criteria, indicators, conceptual
frameworks, information systems, paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of
Science Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, 13-17 February 1997. The most recent ecological footprint
developments are documented in Mathis Wackernagel, Lillemor Lewan, Carl Folke & Carina Hansson
(1997) Evaluating the sustainability of a catchment area: the ecological footprint concept applied to the
Kvlinge watershed in the Malmhus County, South Sweden, draft to be submitted to Ambio.
3. The calculations had to be completed within one month. The project costs were approximately US$2000
which included the reworking of the national footprint calculation, the development of the consumption
land-use matrix and its adaptation for Santiago de Chile. The collection of local data was the responsibility
of ICLEI Latin America and its cost is not covered by the budget of the project discussed.

23

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M. Wackernagel
4. All the main sources used in these calculations stem from United Nations documents. The codes in the
spreadsheets' reference columns (E, H and K) point to the publication used. The first number of the
reference code indicates the data source, the second the page and the third the classification number
within the data source. The data sources are (1) United Nations (1995) 1993 International Trade
Statistics Yearbook, Vol. 1 (New York, Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy
Analysis, Statistical Division), (2) United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
(1994) UNCTAD Commodity Yearbook 1994 (New York and Geneva, United Nations); (3) Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (1995) FAO Yearbook: Production 1994, Vol.
48 (Rome, FAO); (4) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (1994) FAO
Yearbook: Trade 1993, Vol. 47 (Rome, FAO); (5) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (FAO) (1995) FAO Yearbook: Forest Production 1993 (Rome, FAO); (6) (WRI) World
Resources Institute (1996) World Resources 1996-1997 (Washington DC, World Resources Institute,
UNEP, UNDP, World Bank); (7) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
(1995) State of the World's Forests (Rome, FAO); (8) United Nations (1994) 1992 Energy Statistics
Yearbook (New York, Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis, Statistical
Division), '-est' means that the number is estimated, either by extrapolating from subcategories, or by
using price/weight ratios from other countries.
5. Most world average productivities are taken from: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) (1995) FAO Yearbook: Production 1994 Vol. 48 (Rome, FAO). Productivity of animal products is
calculated from FAO world production figures, and weighed according to their conversion efficiencies. The
world average productivity of forests we estimated from the International Panel on Climate Change (1997)
Greenhouse Gas Inventory: Workbook. Revised 1996 1PCC Guidelines, Volume 2 (IPCC, OECD and IEA),
which are based mainly on various FAO publications and studies. For rubber and jute we extrapolated
Vietnamese data (Government of Vietnam, http://www.batin.com.vn/10years/indplant/) Cotton productivity is
taken from Nick Robins et al, (1995) Citizen Action to Lighten Britain's Ecological Footprints (London,
International Institute for Environment and Development), p. 64. Cocoa productivity is taken from Mexican
yields. Similar to Wackernagel & Rees (1996), fossil fuel is translated into land areas for CO2 absorption at the
rate of 55 to 93 Gj/ha/year, depending on the fuel's carbon intensity. FOr hydroelectricity the rate is assumed
to be 1000 Gj/ha/year (land occupied by dams and power lines).
6. In the line description, capitalised names stand for main categories. Line description with a dot ('.') in front
indicates subcategories. Two dots ('..') means sub-subcategory. Wherever possible, the most general
categories were used. These categories and subcategories are identified in bold print.
7. The calculation of each yield factor is explained in the notes of the Excel file. Please note that the yield
factors probably overestimate the biological productivity of industrialised agriculture with heavy fertiliser
use. The yield factor for the sea is assumed to be 1. For built-up land, the yield factor is equal to that of
arable land, as settlements are typically located on such land.
8. Many ecologists believe that a much larger percentage of the world's ecosystems needs to be preserved in
order to secure biodiversity. For example, in 1970 ecologist Eugen Odum recommended in the case of the
state of Georgia that 40% of the territory remain as natural area (Eugene P. Odum (1970) Optimum
population and environment: a Georgia microcosm, Current History, 58, pp. 355-359). Wildlife ecologist
and scientific director of the Wildlands Project, Reed Noss, hypothesised that about 50% of an average
region needs to be protected as wilderness (or equivalent core reserves and lightly used buffer zones) to
restore populations of large carnivores and meet other well-recognised conservation goals (Reed F. Noss
(1991) Sustainability and wilderness, Conservation Biology, pp. 120-121).
9. With 3.2 ha of ecologically productive space available in Chile (expressed in world average productivity),
its available capacity is 32% larger than its national footprint of 2.6 ha per person.With the formula
ekk<t = FPcap/FPioday, we can calculate how long it takes for the Chilean footprint to reach the total available
capacity if it expands at the rate of 1.6% a year (k is the growth rate = 0.016, t the time, FPtOday the footprint
area of today of 36 million hectares and FPcap of a completely filled Chile). In other words, the per capita
footprint would remain constant. Therefore t = In (FPCap/FPtoday)/k = 17 years. If at the same time the per
] capita footprint were to increase by 1% a year, this state would be reached within 10 years.
10. See the analysis by Kaspar Mller, Andreas Sturm & Mathis Wackernagel, Competition and sustainability,
i draft Ellipson, Basel.
11. All the data from this table stem from the World Resources Institute's World Resources 1996-1997
\ Database Diskette (1996, World Resources Institute). A more complete version of this table with trends
for Chile is compiled in file 'wri-chle.xls'.

24

The Ecological Footprint of Santiago

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25