An ecological footprint refers to the land and water area required to support a defined human population and their material standard indefinitely using prevailing technology. While first developed as a planning tool for communities, refinements are being made to apply this to single organizations and individuals. It accounts for the size and effect of the impact, i.e., footprint, on the earth’s ecosystems made by an organization. It is a simple way to represent relative sustainability based on a number of complex interlinked factors such as human population numbers, consumption patterns, and technologies used.