The story
First used by William E. Rees in 1992 and further refined by Mathis Wackernagel in his PhD thesis.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
ecological footprint
Today it means: A measure of how much biologically productive land and water area an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates using prevailing technology and resource management practices. Full definition →