Mathis Wackernagel is Co-founder and President of Global Footprint Network. He created the Ecological Footprint with Professor William Rees at the University of British Columbia as part of his Ph.D. in community and regional planning. Mathis also earned a mechanical engineering degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Mathis has worked on sustainability with governments, corporations and international NGOs on six continents and has lectured at more than a hundred universities. He previously served as director of the Sustainability Program at Redefining Progress in Oakland, California, and ran the Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad at Anáhuac University in Xalapa, Mexico.

Mathis has authored and contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, numerous articles, reports and various books on sustainability that focus on embracing resource limits and developing metrics for sustainability, including Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth; Sharing Nature’s Interest; Der Footprint: Die Welt neu vermessen; Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budget; and WWF International’s Living Planet Report.
Mathis’ awards include the 2018 World Sustainability Award, the 2015 IAIA Global Environment Award, being a 2014 ISSP Sustainability Hall of Fame Inductee, the 2013 Prix Nature Swisscanto, 2012 Blue Planet Prize, 2012 Binding Prize for Nature Conservation, the 2012 Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award of the International Society for Ecological Economics, the 2011 Zayed International Prize for the Environment (jointly awarded with UNEP), an honorary doctorate from the University of Berne in 2007, a 2007 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, 2006 WWF Award for Conservation Merit and 2005 Herman Daly Award of the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics. He was also selected as number 19 on the en(rich) list identifying the 100 top inspirational individuals whose contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures (www.enrichlist.org). John Elkington identified Mathis among the “Zeronaut 50” Roll of Honor, i.e., leading pioneers who are driving the world’s most significant problems to zero. From 2011 to 2015, Mathis was also the Frank H. T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Visiting Professor at Cornell University. Footprint Tools · Overshoot Day

THE CREATIVE PROCESS’ ONE PLANET PODCAST

You've been on this awareness-raising mission for some time. Tell us about the history and mission of the Global Footprint Network.

MATHIS WACKERNAGEL

Actually, awareness doesn't help. We are on the campaign to produce a desire for that transformation. Information is useless unless it's empowering. And of course, it has to be factual. If it's not factual, then it's going to be found out, and it also has to be relevant because otherwise, it's irrelevant. But if it's just relevant, it actually may just be counterproductive because if people see it as relevant but not empowering, they will use their brain to fight it.

So that's why I think awareness campaigns don't work. We can only work on motivation, helping people to find a greater desire to get there, to say, yeah, that's what I want. A sense of agency that they say I can do something about it. Also, a sense of curiosity because we really don't know how to get there eventually.

So, it takes a bit more than just awareness and that's what we learned a bit painfully, obviously, over the last 30 years or painfully because in the beginning we just thought, Oh, why don't people just measure how many planets we have compared to how many we use? And once they see the number, it would be very obvious to them.

So we were the first to start to - and still are I think - the main accounting approach to compare directly how big human activities are compared to what the planet can renew. So it started, perhaps I would say, in reaction to the Brundtland Report, which brought sustainable development to the global stage and had a very complicated definition of sustainable development, “Meeting the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

In my way of talking, I try to move away from the word responsibility because people don't come to me and say, 'Thank you so much for giving me responsibility,' rather they avoid me at parties and so, how do we talk about it? So I like more the metaphor of brushing your teeth. Brushing your teeth is not so much an imposition. "You must brush your teeth, otherwise, you're a really bad person, you know? No, you just brush your teeth because you want to have healthy teeth. It's not a capitalist plot either. They say, Oh, you're such a capitalist, protecting the capital in your jaw. No, we want to have healthy teeth. So it is just protecting your teeth is necessary. Make an effort today to protect the health of your tooth tomorrow. And that's kind of a similar approach. So the same principles that apply to a country or a city also apply to an individual. I mean, an individual could be an investor or can have a pension fund. And so the question is my investment going to be more valued in the future or not? Probably it's more likely to be valuable if it is aligned with what the future will look like. Or you're making decisions about where to live. Like if you make yourself dependent on cars, then every time gasoline prices go up, then you get more exposed.

If you can live with fewer resources, then you feel more safe. So we are talking more about resource security rather than reducing your demand, which is the same thing, but it comes with a twist. If we talk about you've got to reduce your demand, it generates resentment in society because if I put an effort into showering less or with cold water or not going somewhere, and I see my neighbor still doing it, I feel resentful about that neighbor. So it generates resentment in society. It's because you think I gave myself up for humanity and you didn't. Then it's unfair, you know? But if you think from a perspective of resource security, and you learn how to live not by depending on that many resources, you feel safe for yourself.

And if your neighbor is not able to do it and still depends on all of the resources, you can feel empathy for the neighbor. Oh my god, my neighbor is really exposed. And so it's so by empathy, it's kind of a more stable mechanism. So I think we have to find ways to build empathy for saying, Wow, it's really about preparing ourselves.

Like with COVID, if you protect yourself, that's good for society as well. And so that's kind of a win-win that we want to develop.  Big shifts are needed if you want to be able to operate in the future. So it is very serious. I think in the end, only things we want to do will happen. So I think the best thing to get on that track is to, in our own speech, ban the word should because as soon as we say should, we indicate it's not going to happen, and we lose agency.

ONE PLANET

And you work within the EU. How do you navigate the transnational complexity?

WACKERNAGEL

I think actually it's not that complex. Complexity is a racket for not wanting to act. Whole institutions try to generate complexity so everybody can become and maintain business as usual. It's not so complex because, in the end, there's just one planet Earth we live on. It's hard to get to Mars. That's that. And so how can we thrive within that planetary constraint? So I think the first thing is to say is this whole conundrum we live in is not your burden. We personify Earth. Or the world. The world and I. So it's not that complex in a sense. So we often personify the Earth, the world, and say, me and the earth, me are the planet. I'm trying to help the world! The world doesn't help me, or whatever, but actually, the world is so big. Even if you are a big country like the United States or China, you're still one little piece of a much bigger world, so it's more helpful rather than saying, "This is my burden" to recognize the conundrums you are in as your context. That's just your game board. You're on that game board, and the question is what is helpful? The second point is what is helpful is solutions that are replicable, and physically replicable, are good for you because you're much more likely to succeed. With them, you're not running into competition. And it also helps others more than they want others to also take on these solutions because they're replicable are not in competition with you. So that's kind of the true meaning of win-win solutions. Solutions that are replicable are more stable. They make the system more stable. So that's kind of the two simple rules. Recognize it's your context. The second one is focus on replicable solutions, and the complexity just falls away. And you can live with ease and enjoy.

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As a minimal condition to be able to persist, we cannot use forever more than what we get back from nature, what nature can renew. It's a very mechanical view, but we are not even fulfilling this mechanical, bottom-line requirement. Ecologists will tell you that to maintain biodiversity because wild species are in competition for that regeneration, maybe it's not a good idea to use the entire capacity of the planet.

So shooting for one planet just means you would be totally dominant, and leave no space for other species. Ecologists say to maintain 85% of preindustrial biodiversity, it would take about at least half the planet left on its own. That would mean getting to half-planet. And now we use at least 1.75. I say at least because our assessments with about 15,000 data points per country in year are based on UN statistics, and their demand side is probably an underestimate because not all demands are included. And also on the supply side or the regeneration side, the UN is very production oriented, so it's the FAO numbers, for example, look at agricultural production, and the depletion side or the destruction side is not factored in adequately.

So that's why it's an underestimate. And still, it shows we use about 1.75 Earths, and that's more than three times half an Earth. So that's kind of the difference. But we also know overshoot will end one way or another. The question is do we choose to end it? Do we choose it by design, or do we let nature take the lead and end overshoot by disaster? So it's really ending overshoot by design or disaster. That's the big choice we need to make.

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For example, in Germany alone, 43% of the population knows about the Earth Overshoot Date. We serve all countries with a staff of 20 people. And people know about it, perhaps not sufficiently that they feel empowered. So that's one way of trying to influence the public debate overall. We are still pretty miserable in kind of transforming the conversation. They're still stuck in this mindset or trap, which essentially stands for an inconvenient truth means the more you know, the worse you're off. Who wants to know more if you're worse off? You know, it's a trap really. 

So by looking at the effect of overshoot, which we think is the second largest risk for humanity, it actually becomes easier to address because all things come together, and you start to see the self-interest to act. Because if you're in a world of overshoot, and you're not able to be resource-secured, really it's going to hurt you. So it's not just being nice to the rest of the world. I mean, that too, but primarily, it also becomes really essential. If you're not ready for that world, it's going to be very difficult for you. So by bringing this story out, make it resonant, people then also come to us, companies approach us and say, “Let's work with each other.” And it may not be that important how big they are, because we are impressed by stories to a large extent, so the more we can show examples where people build their own success by thinking about the world from that perspective, that's probably convincing others in some ways. So it's very hard to work effectively with institutions who deeply believe that the information is inconvenient because they come up with excuses and you try to overcome the excuses. And by the time you've overcome these excuses, they have invented seven other excuses. Like the hydra, chop off the head, and seven more heads grow. So I think that's really the big tragedy we find. And I think it actually would be so simple if we had a better narrative. We're so in love with the narrative of pointing fingers that we don't see the obvious.

So it's like we are on a boat, and we see a big storm approach. And we realize our boat is not too seaworthy. And then the first thing we do is we go to an international Boat Owners Conference to find out who needs to fix their boat first. Doesn't make that much sense to me, you know?

And then we complexify the story rather than saying, “Actually I am exposed.” And so when you say, “Oh, the poor Maldives,” we take ourselves out of the game. “It's about these others.” It's actually about each one of us in some ways."

*

I'm not against conferences per se. For example, it's good to learn from each other and coordinate whatever is possible. It's just more the idea of commitment. All we have to commit more. If you say commitment to somebody who is not totally convinced already, what they hear is cost, effort, more complication, and so lots of commitments are made and not even those who make them follow up. You know it's a strange mind frame. 

*

I think it may sound extremely capitalist, but I think it's more about securing our asset base because if our assets are not fit for the future... Assets are there to provide for us, and assets like our houses, our transport system, our energy system are there to provide for our needs. Losing in value means they're less able to provide for our needs. So in the broadest sense, the transformation is about securing that our asset base can be maintained and doesn't whittle away. So yes, it could be that if you look at the end that there would be changes, but is it a sacrifice? Same sacrifice if an investor says, "Oh, you're sacrificing money. You could spend it now, and you invest it somewhere else." So it's a sacrifice in the short run to kind of get more benefit in the future, in some ways. But I think the suffering and sacrifice mode, if that's what's at the forefront of people's understanding, it reduces the possibility for people joining the invitation.

Some people want to lose weight, and there's very little talk about, "Oh, you'd be so hungry, so miserable. You'd be having headaches, be craving food for months to come." No, we say, "Hey, on this program you'll start to feel better and have vitality and look good and everything. So it's worth the effort. Let's do it, and it's going to be so great." So it's how we position it. It's kind of similar to if we lead with only the negatives without understanding why it's such a great return on investment, then we won't be able to win people over.

*

The main advice we give is to sleep enough. You need to be rested so you can also have a rested brain and make good decisions because in the end, it's about good decisions. It's not that complicated. Trust yourself. And you're needed. I think what society often tells younger people, You're not needed. You have to go to school forever and then get the first internship. But young people are extremely needed because the transformation that will come upon us is larger than that of the iPhone, you know. Just for the entire economy, the innovation that is required is just infinite. So it's going to be challenging, but it's also going to be quite fascinating to be part of it. So, it's going to be a ride.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Eveline Mol with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this episode was Eveline Mol. Digital Media Coordinators are Jacob A. Preisler and Megan Hegenbarth. 

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).