ABSTRACT
Biodiversity becomes crippled when the biosphere cannot keep up its productivity to support human and other life needs and to oset waste. e term
“ecological footprint” was conceived at the University of British Columbia by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees in 1990 to describe our impact on the planet. It is a measurement of how much land, water, and natural resources a person, city, country, or humanity as a whole requires to produce the resources it consumes. To leave no footprint would mean that a person replaces into the environment exactly what he or she takes out of it. Since the mid 1980s, humankind has been in ecological overshoot, meaning we are taking more than we are giving back. For example, according to the Living Planet Report 2006, the ecological footprint of the USA is 9.6 gha (global hectares) per capita × 300 million people = 2,880 gha, while the ecological footprint of India is 0.8 gha per capita × 1,200 million people = 960 gha. Even though the population of the USA is a quarter that of India, its demand for world resources is about three times greater. Other countries fall between these extremes [6]. In other words, we in the USA require far more resources than people in India to sustain our lifestyle, thus leaving a larger impact on
Sustainable architectural design is part of an increasing awareness that we must use our ingenuity as creative humans to face the ecological and environmental concerns of our planet. An understanding of the global context informs “green” or ecologically responsive design. is section examines environmental and ecological issues that pertain to architecture and calls for a new social and global sense of responsibility.
