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Pathways

Pathways


For at least the last 30 years, no country has met the basic needs of its residents without overconsuming natural resources. Countries have generally been overshooting fair shares of planetary boundaries faster than they've been achieving minimum social thresholds. Use the chart below to explore country pathways of social achievement and ecological sustainability since the early 1990s.

The chart can either show you (a) the number of social thresholds each country achieves in comparison to the number of biophysical boundaries it transgresses, or (b) the extent of each country’s social shortfall in comparison to the extent of its ecological overshoot. Ideally, countries would be located in the top-left corner, where no country currently is.

Countries are colour-coded according to where they start in 1995, and sized according to population. Press PLAY or drag the slider to change 5-year intervals, and hover over an individual country in the chart or the list to highlight its performance. Click on a country to see its historical performance relative to the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries.

The data on this page are from our 2022 article The Social Shortfall and Ecological Overshoot of Nations.