Ecological Footprint Paradox: What Happens If Everyone Consumes Like The Average Indian?

The fact is that resources are finite, and the world is running out of them. Earth’s capacity to regenerate these natural resources is also finite, but researchers can measure how quickly societies will use up that capacity each year.

The easiest way to understand this is through the idea of biocapacity.

Biocapacity is the area of biologically productive land and sea available per person on the planet

— Mathis Wackernagel, Co-Founder, Global Footprint Network

Global biocapacity, according to the latest numbers, stood at about 1.5 global hectares per person.

That figure serves as a rough benchmark: if a country’s average ecological footprint per person stays at or below this number, the world could, in theory, support everyone living at that level without exceeding the planet’s annual regenerative capacity.

When the Global Footprint Network released its latest Country Overshoot Day numbers, India stood out for what it didn’t have. Unlike the US or much of Europe, India does not exceed Earth’s annual resource budget.

If every person lived like the average Indian, we'd only need 75% of the resources the Earth provides. Yet, India is still in a deficit of ecological resources. 

Ecological Footprint

To make sense of India’s numbers, it helps to compare them with those of other large economies. In the US, the ecological footprint (the demand on nature per person) is roughly 7.8 global hectares per person, far above the global average biocapacity of about 1.5 global hectares per person. That means if everyone on Earth lived like the average American, humanity would need more than five Earths’ worth of resources to meet that demand sustainably. 

China’s per-person footprint is lower, at around 3.5 global hectares per person, but still more than double the global biocapacity estimate; if everyone consumed resources at the average Chinese level, it would take about two or three Earths to support that lifestyle indefinitely.

India’s footprint is far smaller, around 1.1 global hectares per person, which is below the world’s per-person biocapacity estimate. This is precisely why India does not have an early overshoot date like the US or China, in the 2026 Country Overshoot Day calendar.

Country Deficit Days

However, the picture shifts when we look at Country Deficit Days, which measures when a country’s own ecosystems have been fully used relative to its population. Under this metric, India’s Deficit Day is projected to fall on 17 April 2026, implying that India’s domestic biocapacity is still insufficient to meet even its comparatively low per-person demand without relying on external resources or drawing down natural stocks.

The way it functions right now, it’s within the capacity of the Earth. But as a country, it’s in a severe deficit situation

— Mathis Wackernagel

India’s apparent restraint, he explains, is not a sign of abundance or balance. It is a reflection of low average consumption layered over deep structural scarcity.

Not About Oil Or Minerals

Wackernagel argues that debates about rare earths, fossil fuels, or mining miss the real constraint.

"The most important one, the mother of all resources, is biocapacity — the ability of ecosystems to produce themselves," he says. 

Biocapacity determines how much food, fibre, and wood can be produced, but also how much pollution, especially carbon, the planet can absorb. While minerals and fossil fuels may be plentiful underground, extracting and using them is ultimately limited by how much ecological damage societies are willing, or able, to absorb.

This is why the Global Footprint Network treats countries and the planet “as if the earth or a country were a farm,” measuring how much biologically productive land and sea area exists, how productive it is, and how much humans demand from it. Everything is converted into a comparable unit: global hectares.

No Overshoot Day, Still In A Deficit

Country Overshoot Day asks a hypothetical question: If everyone in the world lived like people in this country, when would Earth’s annual budget be exhausted? India doesn’t have one because, at the global level, its average consumption is below planetary limits. But for national policy, according to Wackernagel, this is the wrong lens.

"What is more challenging for India… the deficit day, would be when the country has its own resources", Wackernagel points out. 

India’s per capita biocapacity is roughly 0.3 global hectares, while its ecological footprint is about 1.1. In other words: “It actually now takes three to four Indias to support India, not leaving any space for other species in the long run.”

The gap is temporarily bridged by depleting ecosystems, importing resources, and filling the atmosphere with waste. None of these is a durable strategy.

Growth Without Resource Security

One of the misconceptions is that GDP growth alone can solve environmental stress.

“You can produce GDP without having the resources to maintain the GDP machinery,” Wackernagel told The Secretariat. 

India, like many lower-income countries, faces a bind. Limited biocapacity at home, income that constrains buying power abroad, and rising aspirations at home collide in the same policy space.

Research by the Global Footprint Network shows that 73% of the world’s population lives in countries that face both ecological deficits and below-average incomes.

This makes biocapacity a developmental issue.

Countries that don’t have resource security at the core of the economic development strategy… are, from my perspective, on a suicidal path 

— Mathis Wackernagel

India’s push on renewable energy, especially solar and wind, is often cited as evidence that the country is already aligning growth with environmental limits. These efforts matter, particularly for reducing fossil fuel dependence and air pollution. 

What Overshoot Numbers Convey

But renewables address only one part of the footprint equation, which is energy-related emissions. They do not, on their own, increase biocapacity or reduce pressures on land, forests, water, and food systems. 

A biocapacity lens would treat forests, soils, fisheries, and watersheds as productive economic assets, not just environmental safeguards. That shifts policy focus from short-term extraction to long-term yield. Raising consumption for those who lack basic services is essential. But doing so without expanding or protecting the ecological base risks deepening the deficit that already exists.

Wackernagel is clear that this is not about waiting for global consensus. “If you wait for that, you actually hurt yourself.”

For India, the lesson is not that low average consumption is virtuous, but that future growth must be anchored in protecting and enhancing the ecosystems that make growth possible at all.

Resource security, he argues, belongs at the centre of economic planning, alongside jobs, incomes, and trust.

GDP signals economic activity, but it does not reveal whether that activity can be sustained with the resources available. Biocapacity indicators offer an early warning system. In a resource-constrained future, the question for policymakers will not be how fast the economy grows, but whether it can keep running at all.