ABSTRACT
In April 2006 the New Economics Foundation released a report on UK ‘interdependence’. It attracted media attention because it identified a date when the average UK citizen begins to live off the rest of the world.
The moment we begin living beyond our natural means is what we call our ecological debt day. At current levels of natural resource use in the UK, the average person goes into ecological debt on 16 April. As our total consumption grows, it moves ever earlier in the year. In 1961 it was 9 July, advancing to 14 May in 1981.
(Simms et al, 2006, p2)