This year the Earth Overshoot Day, the day we used this year’s natural resources that can be produced in a sustainable way, fell on 2 August. That is, five months before the end of the year! Unsurprisingly, since the 1970s, when humanity first began over-consuming, this date is the earliest of all the calculations so far.
It is also interesting to see when the Overshoot Day would be if everyone in the world lived on the average Hungarian footprint: sooner or later than the global day? Unfortunately, in Hungary we have a footprint that is somewhat larger than the world average; so this day fell on 10 July this year.
Secondly, we also found out when the national ecological deficit day in Hungary, that is, our National Overshoot Day. The day when the country’s biocapacity is used up, i.e. those living in Hungary exhaust the amount of resources produced sustainably by the ecosystems in the country this year (such as wood, food and water) and deplete our ecosystem services (for example carbon sequestration, water filtration and regulation or nutrient cycling). We create an ecological deficit, for example by over-exploiting our resources: overfishing our rivers, depleting the soil, cutting down forests without reforestation, releasing more carbon than Hungarian ecosystems can absorb and importing more products than we export. Overshoot Days are calculated each year by the Global Footprint Network on the basis of the most recent available UN statistics (this year from 2013). Based on this, the Hungarian National Overshoot Day will be on 22 September, 2017: that is to say, in a period of less than nine months, we will use up what ecosystems could sustainably provide us with within the borders of Hungary for the entire year.
In order to push this date later as much as possible, we all have a lot to do; every small and large step counts! Thus GreenDependent Association and CEEweb for Biodiversity are launching a joint campaign: we ask for personal pledges to help move the date of the Hungarian National Overshoot Day! A lot can be done: some examples have been collected (see below), of which everyone can choose whatever suits his or her life and lifestyle. And you can go from the easier pledges and changes to the more challenging and demanding ones!
Those who make a pledge during the next three weeks until 17 September, start the implementation and make a photo of it, have a chance to win one of the four “green vouchers” worth 5000 HUF each! GreenDependent and CEEweb will jointly select the winners. Please send the pledge and the photo to
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. We especially appreciate if the pledges and the photos are shared in comments under the relevant posts of our Kislábnyom and CEEweb social media pages. You can also join the campaign with the #movethedate hashtag.
For more information, please contact:
GreenDependent Association:
Vadovics Edina
telephone: 20/512 1887
e-mail:
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website: www.greendependent.org
CEEweb for Biodiversity
Hajdu Klára
telephone: 20/3889 437
e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
website: www.ceeweb.org/hu
The GreenDependent Association and CEEweb for Biodiversity joined
the Global Footprint Network "Earth Overshoot Day" #movethedate campaign:
The campaign is organised jointly by Greendependent and CEEweb for Biodiversity.
CEEweb’s work is realized with the financial assistance of the EU. The donors are not responsible for the content of the campaign.
The press release can be downloaded from HERE.
Pledges are available HERE.
