Land Footprint of EU consumption

The Land Footprint model contributes to a better understanding of the link between production and consumption systems and can support policy making in a number of ways.

• Identifying hotspots, in terms of products responsible for a large share of the EU land footprint or countries from which the EU is virtually importing more land.
• Monitoring: yearly updates of the estimates can allow tracking the evolution of the pressure the EU is exerting on third countries, and the pressure posed by domestic production and exports of biobased products on the domestic use of land
• Setting a baseline against which policy options and green transitions scenarios can be tested, such as increased circularity and efficiency of supply chains, reduced food waste, and dietary shifts.
• Identifying transboundary and spillovers effects, providing detailed insights on the virtual land embodied in imported goods.

Therefore, the Land Footprint model can support both monitoring and ex-post evaluation of existing policies, as well as performing scenario analysis that could be used in ex-ante impact assessment of policies.

The land footprint estimates are currently being used by Eurostat to fulfill their mandate, e.g. Regulation (EC) 223/2009 on European statistics. Eurostat uses the land footprint estimates to enrich its portfolio of statistics and accounts about the environment and the drivers, pressures, and impacts of our societies on it. In particular, Eurostat uses the land footprint estimates for its regular monitoring of EU's progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (European Commission: Eurostat, Sustainable development in the European Union – Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context – 2023 edition).