Virtually all products consumed in the ACT (food, clothing, energy, building materials, household and luxury items) are sourced from outside the ACT. In 2003/04, Canberra’s ecological footprint was 8.5 gha per person or 2.65 million gha – roughly 11 times the actual 253,800 ha the ACT occupies. It was the highest per capita footprint of any Australian city and is also high by world standards.

Expenditure and household size are critical in determining the size of the ecological footprint:

• more affluent communities have a larger footprint as people can afford to buy more goods
• smaller households have a larger footprint because there are fewer people to share the same resources.

The ecological footprint target is designed to achieve a 15% decrease in the intermediate term and 30% in the longer term. The 30% per capita target reflects the need to firmly establish a trajectory towards global sustainability.

Careful planning is also needed to prevent the ecological footprint of the whole of Canberra increasing as the population grows in size and affluence. Assuming continued population growth at 1% each year until 2030, a 30% per capita decrease in footprint will only translate to a 10% decrease in the total impact of the Canberra population (1.9 m gha).

The ACT Government is already addressing the size of the ACT’s ecological footprint with the introduction of initiatives such as ACT No WAste and the Sustainable Housing Initiative.

Initially, the rate of change is likely to be slow, but should increase as carbon trading introduces strong market incentives for behavioural change.