Country Deficit Days

Given global overshoot, what might be even more relevant than Country Overshoot Days are Country Deficit Days. A country’s Deficit Day is the day by which its residents have used as much from nature as the country’s ecosystems regenerate in the entire year. In short: the country’s own Footprint starts to exceed its own biocapacity. Here’s the backstory.

How much nature do we have?

The calculation is simple: the globe has a circumference of 40,000 kilometers. Using simple school geometry, even high-schoolers can calculate that the Earth’s surface covers therefore 51 billion hectares. Maps show that about a quarter of the Earth’s surface is biologically productive: forests, fields, wetlands and seas rich in fish – especially the coastal areas. The other three quarters are deserts, ice sheets and deep oceans with few fish. What does that mean per person? With a world population of over eight billion, there is about 1.5 hectares of productive land per inhabitant today.

Is the goal therefore for people to use all 1.5 hectares? Probably not. Since we share this planet with 5-10 million wild species (not including microbes), they need some of that ecological capacity as well to live. Resilient ecosystems and robust biodiversity may also prove central for climate stability. Additionally, we may want to leave further reserves as the world’s population is growing.

Countries’ endowment

Countries are unequally endowed with biocapacity. Bangladesh, Israel, or Rwanda have about ¼ of a global hectare per resident. Switzerland, Senegal, or Italy contain about one global hectare per person. France, Panama, Croatia, Austria, Ireland and Chile hover around 3 global hectares per inhabitant. Such global hectares are plant-covered hectares with world average productivity.

All of these countries, and many more, use above and beyond what their own ecosystems can regenerate. To produce all the food, wood and fiber that these countries’ residents consume, to absorb the corresponding waste (especially the CO2 from fossil energy), and to accommodate the cities, roads and villages (which often occupy the most fertile soils), Western European countries currently use around 4 global hectares per person.

Switzerland as an example

Switzerland, for example, used 4.2 global hectares per resident in 2023. But it only contained only 1.1 global hectares of biocapacity. This means, its own biocapacity only covered 92 days of the year. This means that in 2023, Switzerland used up its own biocapacity budget by April 1 – hence April 1 being the Swiss Deficit Day.

So what? Swiss residents have money. They can buy the rest (including about half of their food) from abroad. Also, it still does not cost them anything to emit the CO2 waste into the global atmosphere.

But competition for our planet’s biocapacity is stiffening with rest of the world given that humanity’s demand exceeds now by 75% what the planet’s ecosystems can renew. The consequence is the build-up of global ecological debt – rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, scarce drinking water, dwindling forests. Where will the Swiss import all the necessary resources from?

The economic implications

For physical reasons, it is impossible for all countries to import more than they export. This intensifies competition for natural resources.

Such competition presents an economic challenge for all nations, including high-income countries. The relative income of most high-income countries is declining compared to the rest of the world, as GDP growth in lower-income regions, such as India and China, is rising more rapidly. For instance, the share of a Swiss resident’s income in total global GDP today is only 62% of what it was 30 years ago. This decline in relative income weakens Swiss buyers’ competitive advantage when bidding for the global resources they consume.

The impact of this declining income is further exacerbated by the growth of global ecological overshoot, which has risen from 22% in 1993 to 75% in 2023. These two trends—declining relative income and increasing global overshoot—reinforce each other, illustrating how resource deficits are becoming an escalating risk for Switzerland’s economy.

However, this outcome is not inevitable. Economies that recognize the importance of resource security for long-term stability and proactively reduce their dependence on finite resources with foresight and determination can thrive both now and in the future. This stands in stark contrast to the current approach of many countries, which largely involves waiting for the next climate conference (COP) while remaining unprepared for the predictable challenges ahead.

The table below shows after how many days countries have used up their respective country’s annual biocapacity budget, according to the preliminary 2025 edition of the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts. The data are for 2023. These latest results are used to determine the 2025 Country Deficit Days.

Additional Resources

Country Overshoot Day
Country data on Footprint Data Platform
Earth Overshoot Day
About the Ecological Footprint
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