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You are listening to "The Podcast 
Factory Org".

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Welcome to a new episode of "6 
Minutes to Understand" with Pierre

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Léonard, whom I am delighted to 
welcome back with great enthusiasm

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and smiles, a segment by 
Midoricast.

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The floor is yours, Pierre.

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Hello Michel, hello everyone.

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This year, amid the relative 
indifference of the summer

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holidays, it was on July 30 that 
humanity finished spending its

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entire current ecological budget, 
five months before December

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31. Since that Thursday in July and 
until the next reset

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of the counter in January, 
we are living on credit on the

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planet's resources.

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And it is a credit that no bank 
would agree to renew indefinitely.

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Welcome to "6 Minutes to 
Understand",

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and today I wanted to talk to you 
about Earth Overshoot

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Day. What it truly measures, 
why some countries cross it in

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February while others do not cross 
it at all.

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And above all, what we can tangibly 
do about it in our businesses as

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well as at home. The principle is 
actually quite simple,

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almost like accounting.

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Each year, the planet produces a 
certain amount of

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renewable resources: 
wood, fish, crops,

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and it absorbs a certain amount of 
waste,

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notably our famous CO2, 
thanks to forests and oceans.

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This regenerative capacity is 
called biocapacity.

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It is measured in global hectares, 
a unit that allows agricultural

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land, forests, or fishing grounds 
to be compared on the same scale.

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On the other side of the scale is 
our ecological footprint.

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The surface area theoretically 
required to produce everything

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humanity consumes and absorb 
everything it generates.

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Earth Overshoot Day is therefore 
that moment of the year when this

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collective human footprint exceeds 
the biocapacity available for the

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twelve months. Calculated each year 
by the Global Footprint

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Network organization, 
this date has been moving earlier

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year after year since the 1970s.

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Back then, it fell at the end of 
December;

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today it is at the end of July for 
Belgium and for France.

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And so in concrete terms, 
what does that mean? It would take

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one planet and almost two 
planets—1.73

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planets—to properly sustain the

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consumption of all humanity, 
so this 1.73

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planets is a global average.

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So what does Earth Overshoot Day 
actually do? In reality, it

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measures an overall imbalance 
between the supply and demand of

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renewable resources.

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There is a more granular, 
complementary framework that

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measures the health of the planet 
across nine specific dimensions:

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the planetary boundaries, 
which I discussed in one of the

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first episodes of this segment.

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Let's review them quickly: 
climate,

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biodiversity, nitrogen and 
phosphorus cycles,

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land use, freshwater, 
ocean acidification,

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aerosols, the ozone layer, 
and finally pollution from

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substances such as plastics.

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The latest available assessment 
does not mince words:

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seven of these nine planetary 
boundaries have already been

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crossed. The most recent one is 
ocean acidification.

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Only the ozone layer and aerosol 
loading—these fine particles,

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in fact—still remain within a zone 
considered safe.

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And living on ecological credit is 
by no means an accounting

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abstraction; it translates very 
concretely into continuous

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deforestation, particularly in the 
Amazon and Indonesia.

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Collapse of certain fish stocks 
because we harvest faster than

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populations can replenish, 
freshwater scarcity in several

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regions of the world, 
nanoplastics found even in the

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human brain, and above all, 
the accumulation of greenhouse

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gases in the atmosphere because 
ecosystems can no longer absorb the

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40 billion tons we emit each year.

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And for that alone, 
we are already using up the

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majority of the available 
biocapacity.

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The result, we saw it this summer: 
heatwaves,

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droughts, more violent storms, 
wildfires.

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For an organization, 
these are not abstract statistics;

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they mean strained supply chains, 
raw materials becoming scarce,

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rising costs, insurance becoming 
more expensive,

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and increasing risks.

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And so July 30th, 
which we reached this year,

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is a global average.

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But if we look country by country, 
that is to say the date on which

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the global budget would be 
exhausted if all of humanity lived

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like these countries, 
the gaps are staggering.

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Qatar tops the worst rankings as 
early as February 4th,

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closely followed by Luxembourg 
(Michel Godart:

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Hmm?), Luxembourg, 
indeed.

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The small country of Luxembourg?

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Yes, yes. For Luxembourg, 
it would take ten planets if

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everyone lived like the inhabitants 
of this tiny neighboring country.

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And Pierre, I also heard people 
telling me that Belgium was ranked

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way worse than one might think.

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Yes, Michel. Belgium reaches its 
Overshoot Day on April

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11th. That means it would take more 
than four planets if everyone lived

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like the Belgians. France follows 
at the end of April with a little

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over three planets. At the other 
end of the spectrum,

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we have countries that are entirely 
compatible with our biocapacity,

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or rather with the planet's 
biocapacity.

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Indonesia and Ecuador only tip over 
in autumn,

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and Nepal, which is precisely—or 
rather unfairly—hit hard by the

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consequences of this climate change 
and the exceeding of planetary

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boundaries. In fact, 
it gets everything right,

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meaning it has a footprint of 0.8, 
which means it never exceeds its

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biocapacity (Michel Godart: 
Wow).

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So if everyone lived like in Nepal,

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we wouldn't have an Overshoot Day; 
on the contrary,

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we would be living on debit rather 
than on credit.

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For an organization, 
understanding where it stands on

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this scale is an enlightening 
exercise.

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It reveals its true dependence on 
strained resources before the

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market reminds it through: 
either a price increase,

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a supply disruption, 
or a shortage.

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It is a tangible advantage, 
once again,

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to anticipate rather than endure.

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And in fact, in our current 
economic mindset,

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the truly sustainable countries are 
most often the least developed

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ones, which raises the real 
question:

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"Can we stay within planetary 
boundaries while still offering a

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good standard of living?".

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A few cases offer an encouraging 
preliminary answer,

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as I mentioned, Ecuador, 
Costa Rica,

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which combine decent human 
development with a footprint close

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to their national biocapacity; 
they do not exceed the resources

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allocated to them.

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These are rare exceptions, 
but they exist and show that the

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trajectory is not set in stone.

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Conversely, for a company that 
ignores the issue,

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the risk is an unmapped dependency 
on strained resources,

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procurement costs, 
everything I just explained.

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Faced with this imbalance, 
two complementary responses are

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necessary: mitigation, 
adaptation.

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Bearing well in mind that 
adaptation,

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as we saw in the previous episode, 
will cost much,

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much, much less than doing nothing 
and having to react in crisis mode.

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I think that's a really great 
argument.

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But to be able to anticipate, 
obviously,

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you have to know (Michel Godart: 
Yes) what you are up against.

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So measuring is the first step in 
order to take action.

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What will that involve within the 
company?

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Well, it will start with measuring 
its raw materials,

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measuring its waste, 
measuring its dependency on

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critical resources.

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That is the first step. Next, 
you will need to identify the areas

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where your business has the 
greatest impact,

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which will often be procurement and 
travel.

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And replace symbolic gestures.

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Setting up a compost bin is great, 
mind you,

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but it's not enough; 
you will need to replace this

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symbolic gesture with actions that 
will have a real impact on your

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business, and incorporate that 
perspective into your strategic

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decisions, not just as a line in 
your annual non-financial report.

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At home, the logic is the same on a 
small scale:

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reduce what truly carries 
weight—food,

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mobility, housing, 
consumption of disposable

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items—rather than focusing on small 
actions that feel good,

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ultimately, but without changing 
the order of magnitude.

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Earth Overshoot Day is pushed back 
when millions of small individual

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decisions turn into collective 
decisions moving in the same

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direction. To sum up, 
Earth Overshoot Day is not an

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abstract climate inevitability; 
it is a budget that we exceed a

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little earlier each year.

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But the good news is that this 
timeline is not set in stone.

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Thank you for listening to this 
episode,

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and next time, we will talk about 
decarbonized mobility in business.

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Factory Org".

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