Emergy Evaluation and Ecological Footprint Analysis for Regional Environmental Sustainability Assessment: A Comparison

Several methods for regional environmental sustainability assessment have been proposed by the scientific community in the last few years, including two interesting resource-use based tools: Emergy Evaluation (Emergy) and Ecological Footprint Analysis (Footprint). Emergy Evaluation assesses all resources used, directly and indirectly, to support a region economy. Ecological Footprint Analysis expresses human demands (in terms of land requirement) taking into account resource consumption and the assimilation of wastes. By means of different metrics they are able to evaluate inputs of different kinds by using a common unit. Although their holistic approaches have been criticized they are currently used for sustainable development strategies, because of the deep insight they provide into the complex interactions between humans and nature from an eco-centric point of view. The aim of this paper was to compare these two environmental accounting methods in order to highlight similarities and differences in approach, perspective, procedure, and outcome, with reference to some relevant aspects of sustainability, such as use of natural capital, resource depletion, and waste absorption. Emergy was found to have a higher level of complexity and to provide more information about the origin and the regeneration rate of resources. While Footprint gives more information about CO2 emissions at the local and global level. Although neither tool considers all major aspects of regional sustainability, they are powerful tools for decision making in land management and planning.