Earth Overshoot Day

1 Earth Overshoot Day correcting humanity’s largest market failure
2 What is Earth Overshoot Day and how is it calculated ?
3 Why is Earth Overshoot Day relevant to the UK construction industry ?
4 How has the Earths overshoot day changed?
5 Further Information
6 Related articles on Designing Buildings

[edit] Earth Overshoot Day correcting humanity’s largest market failure

July 24th marks Earth Overshoot Day 2025, the date when humanity’s demand for natural resources exceeds what Earth can regenerate in a year. Calculated by the Global Footprint Network using data from York University, this year’s date is the earliest ever recorded. It reflects the reality that we are currently using nature 1.8 times faster than ecosystems can replenish. This overshoot stems from excessive carbon emissions, overconsumption of freshwater, deforestation, overfishing, and other unsustainable practices that erode the planet’s natural capital and threaten long-term resource security, particularly for already vulnerable populations.

The consequences of ecological overshoot are widespread and intensifying. It drives biodiversity loss, resource depletion, and the accumulation of greenhouse gases, which in turn fuel extreme weather, food and energy insecurity, health crises, economic stagnation, and geopolitical conflict.

Despite its early timing, Earth Overshoot Day has remained within a narrow calendar window for over 15 years, indicating a persistent overuse of natural resources. The cumulative impact of this annual overspending deepens our ecological debt, making each subsequent year more precarious.

From an economic standpoint, overshoot represents a market failure, where the true cost of nature’s services is not reflected in market prices. This failure leads to underpriced resource inputs, encouraging overuse and increasing the likelihood of future disruptions and economic shocks. It also deprives biocapacity providers—those who manage and protect natural resources—of fair compensation. To prevent ecological and economic collapse, this market failure must be corrected through deliberate policy and systemic change, ending overshoot by design rather than by disaster.

For more information see the press release "Earth Overshoot Day 2025 falls on July 24th Correcting Humanity’s Largest Market Failure"

[edit] What is Earth Overshoot Day and how is it calculated ?

Earth Overshoot Day (previously sometimes called Ecological Debt Day) marks the day when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. Another way to look at the data is to look at what has been coined Country Deficit Days which given global overshoot, might be more relevant. These are country biocapacity limits, where more has been used from nature than ecosystems can regenerate in a year.

Earth Overshoot Day is hosted and calculated by the Global Footprint Network, an international research organisation that provides decision-makers with a menu of tools to help the human economy operate within Earth’s ecological limits. The concept was originally conceived by the Global Footprint Network and the New Economics Foundation and is calculated yearly for the globe as a whole as well as on a country by country basis.

The day is calculated by estimating the capacity of global ecosystems to produce the biological materials required by humans and its ability to absorb the waste material generated by humans over a year, referred to as biocapacity. This figure is then divided by the ecological footprint of humans in terms of material use, waste, emissions and so on. The result is then multiplied over the 365 days of the year to give an indicative day when effectively global resource would run out if used sustainably. After that day until the end of the year, demands are effectively being met through the depletion of natural resources and the accumulation of waste, such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans, pushing essential global ecosystems closer to the point of collapse.

[edit] Why is Earth Overshoot Day relevant to the UK construction industry ?

For the UK in 2025, the overshoot day lands on 20 May, after which the UK would effectively need another land mass to meet its demand, in 2019 it was May 17, in 2018 it was May 8 and in 2017 May 4.

The construction industry and buildings in use contribute significantly to the ecological footprint of humans. The Stockholm Environment Institute as well as other scientific groups estimate "Construction sector accounts for 50% of global resource extraction, making it the most material-intensive sector in the world". The IEA reported in 2019 that the buildings and construction sector "accounted for 36% of final energy use and 39% of energy and process-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2018" with 11% of this from the manufacturing building materials and products such as steel, cement and glass.

In May 2023, the Environment Audit Committee (EAC) that advises the Government, reported that residential and commercial buildings combined, the UK’s built environment is responsible for "25% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions". Concurrently the UKGBC estimates that construction, demolition and excavation accounts for 60% of material use and waste generation in the UK.

Although the overshoot days include data from various sources beyond carbon emissions, these form part if the assessment. On 26 February the UK Climate Change Committee published 'The Seventh Carbon Budget' a statutory report that provides advice to the UK Government on the level of the Seventh Carbon Budget (2038 to 2042). On 25 June, 2025 the Committee published its 'Progress in reducing emissions – 2025 report to Parliament' another statutory report that provides a comprehensive overview of the UK Government’s progress to date in reducing emissions.

The report confirmed that UK emissions have continued their long-term decline in 2024, falling 2.5% from the previous year and reaching a level 50.4% below 1990 figures. This marks the tenth consecutive annual reduction (excluding the pandemic years), driven mainly by cuts in the electricity supply and industry sectors, including the closure of the last coal-fired power station. However, rising emissions from aviation, which now exceed those from electricity, pose a growing challenge and risk to future targets.

Over 80% of emissions cuts needed by 2030 must come from sectors beyond energy supply, especially through electrifying surface transport, buildings, and industry. Continued decarbonisation of the electricity system is essential to support this transition, with further reductions beyond 2030 also relying on progress in aviation, agriculture, land use, and engineered carbon removals. The graph below from the report shows that by 2030 3.4% of total reductions needs to come from buildings, with this increasing to 4.9% in the following period. For full details visit CCC report here.

[edit] How has the Earths overshoot day changed?

In the early 1970's the average global earth overshoot day occurred in December, by the 80's it was in November, the 90's in October, by the millennium it was in September and since 2010 it has sat between the end of July and the beginning of August. In effect the past global overshoot days have been moving forward by about one month every 10 years, when they should be moving back by the same if globally we were meeting environmental goals.

Whilst formally the current period, since the last Ice age (Pleistocene) is known as the Holocene epoch, the Anthropocene is often used to describe a new geological epoch resulting from "significant human-driven changes to the structure and functioning of the Earth System, including the climate system.’ There are many and very varied estimates of when the Anthropocene is considered to have started, ranging from the early agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution to the the 1950's but all mark points significant increases in global emissions, natural resource use or waste production.

A future theoretical epoch might be considered as the point where a symbiosis exists between humans and planetary ecosystems, this might also be related back to a point where there is no earth overshoot day, or where the earths biocapacity meets ecological footprint of humans. Glenn A. Albrecht coined the terms Symbiocene to describe an epoch as a " period of re-integration between humans and the rest of nature, is the second of the master themes used to define Earth emotions."