The ecological footprint as a follow - up tool for an administration : 1 Application for the Vanoise National Park

12 Ecological footprint calculation methodology is generally well defined on a national scale. 13 It is also proposed by several authors as a corporate sustainability metric, yet for this scale, 14 there is no consensus method. The aim of this paper is to identify the consequences of such 15 methodological liberties within the ecological footprint estimation and its use as a decision 16 aid tool on the scale of a public organization. 17 The method was developed and validated for the Vanoise National Park which undertook 18 to reduce its ecological footprint by 10% between 2009 and 2007. 19 The methodological liberties inherent to ecological footprint analysis on an organization 20 scale generate methodological choices that may influence the results in terms of 21 environmental impact hierarchy and priority of actions. Therefore, such analysis requires 22 transparency in the methodological choices behind the calculation and the involvement of 23 the end-users in these choices. 24