Country Overshoot Days

A country’s overshoot day is the date on which Earth Overshoot Day would fall if all of humanity consumed like the people in this country.

We determine the country overshoot days in 2022 using the 2022 edition of the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts, which features Ecological Footprint and biocapacity data from 1961 to the latest data-year of 2018. Typically, there is a three to four-year lag between the latest data-year and the present due to the UN’s reporting process.

Let’s take Switzerland’s 2022 overshoot day, for example, using the 2022 edition (with data for 2018):

• The Ecological Footprint for Switzerland is 4.35 gha per person (in 2018)
• Global biocapacity is 1.6 gha per person (in 2018)

Therefore, it would take (4.35/ 1.6) = 2.75 Earths if everyone lived like the Swiss,
OR
we can determine Switzerland’s overshoot day as 365 * (1.6/4.35) = 133rd day in the year. The 133rd day of 2022 is the 13th of May, Switzerland’s Overshoot Day.

Not all countries will have an overshoot day. By way of the country overshoot equation above, a country will only have an overshoot day if their Ecological Footprint per person is greater than global biocapacity per person (1.6 gha). Countries whose Ecological Footprint per person are less than global biocapacity per person (1.6 gha) and do not have an overshoot day are listed as “none” in our list below. In leap years, we compare the date against 366 days of the year, rather than the usual 365.