What is Earth Overshoot Day?

We’re overspending our ecological budget: but it’s not too late to act

24 July marks Earth Overshoot Day 2025. It might sound like a commemorative date, but it isn’t. In fact, the date, which changes every year, indicates that by today – fewer than seven full months into the year – humanity has already consumed all the ecological resources and services that Earth can produce over the course of a year. Which means that, from now to the end of the year, we’re using more resources than the planet can regenerate. Quite simply, we’re living beyond our planetary means.¹

Over the five or so decades since the day was first instituted, Earth Overshoot Day has generally crept earlier in the calendar every year. The earlier the date falls, the greater the ecological debt we are accumulating, and the more severe our impact on the planet’s natural systems becomes. For context, in 1971, Earth Overshoot Day fell on 29 December: just two days short of our global civilisation living in balance with the Earth’s systems. By 2000, it was 16 September, and in 2019, it was 29 July. The fact that it now falls on 24 July highlights the ongoing urgency of the situation.

The date for Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by comparing the planet’s biocapacity – the amount of ecological resources that Earth is able to generate in a given year – against humanity’s ecological footprint, which represents our demand for those resources in the same year. This ratio, multiplied by 365, gives us the date. ² You can find out more about how the day is determined at overshoot.footprintnetwork.org.

How can we #MoveTheDate?

#MoveTheDate is the global campaign to shift Earth Overshoot Day to later in the calendar each year. In order to achieve this, ideally moving it to 31 December, we need to bring human activity back into balance with Earth’s ecological budget.³

Reassuringly, there is still hope that we can achieve this. According to the organisers of Earth Overshoot Day, currently existing solutions could have massive potential if we implemented them at scale.^{4 5} These solutions span five major areas:

• The planet: how we help nature thrive.
• Our cities: how we design and manage urban areas.
• Energy use: how we power ourselves and our lives.
• Food: how we produce, distribute, and consume what we eat.
• Population: considering the number of people on earth.

Specific examples of solutions include implementing food-waste prevention legislation, encouraging circular economies through recycling and refurbishing, fostering rural solar power and microgrids, prioritising the financing of decarbonisation, and improving emissions standards for trucks.⁶ While promoting a shift to more plant-rich diets⁷ is one of the listed solutions in the food category, it’s important to recognise the comprehensive nature of the challenge and the need for widespread action across all these areas in order to achieve significant change.

The environmental benefits of plant-based diets

While not a primary driver for moving Earth Overshoot Day, a shift towards more plant-based diets can deliver significant environmental benefits:

• Biodiversity Loss: Our current food systems and consumption patterns are among the primary drivers of biodiversity loss.⁸ The current rate of extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years – the Earth is currently undergoing its sixth mass extinction as a direct result of human activity.⁹ Agricultural expansion, often linked to animal agriculture, threatens wilderness areas and leads to habitat destruction.¹⁰
• Climate Change: The global food system is a significant driver of climate change.¹¹ Animal agriculture contributes a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.¹² In fact, emissions from animal-based foods are twice those of plant-based foods.¹³ Reducing our reliance on animal agriculture will not only cut these emissions but will also free up land so that it can be used for carbon sequestration, providing benefits for both the climate and food security.¹⁴ Shifting to plant-based diets is one of the most effective ways to reduce emissions.^{15 16}
• Deforestation: Agriculture is a major cause of deforestation. The production of livestock and feed drives a significant share of tropical deforestation emissions.¹⁷ Dietary changes can be more impactful than agricultural intensification when it comes to achieving zero-deforestation goals.¹⁸
• Land Use: Half of the world’s habitable land is currently used for agriculture.¹⁹ A global transition to a plant-based diet could reduce global agricultural land use from 4 billion to just 1 billion hectares, since animal-based diets require considerably more land.²⁰
• Environmental Pollution: Livestock production contributes to various forms of pollution, including emissions of nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as water eutrophication and soil and water contamination.²¹ Additionally, animal waste often contains antibiotic residues,²² thereby contributing to the global threat of antimicrobial resistance.^{23 24}
• Water Use: The production of animal-based products has a significant water footprint. Plant-based diets typically require less water than diets centred around meat and dairy. ^25 26

Ultimately, addressing Earth Overshoot Day requires a multifaceted approach across various sectors, with transitioning towards more plant-rich diets being a crucial component of a more sustainable future. 

Simon Middleton

Senior Writer

1. Earth Overshoot Day home – #MoveTheDate. Available at: https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/ ↩︎
2. Ibid ↩︎
3. Ibid ↩︎
4. Ibid ↩︎
5. Ceballos, G., P. R. Ehrlich, A. D. Barnosky, et al. (2015): Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances 1(5), e1400253. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26601195/. ↩︎
6. Earth Overshoot Day home – #MoveTheDate. Available at: https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/ ↩︎
7. Ibid ↩︎
8. Ceballos, G., P. R. Ehrlich, A. D. Barnosky, et al. (2015): Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances 1(5), e1400253. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26601195/. ↩︎
9. Ibid ↩︎
10. Gardner, A. S., B. T. Trew, I. M. D. Maclean, et al. (2023): Wilderness areas under threat from global redistribution of agriculture. Current Biology 33(21), 4721-4726.e2. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37863061/ ↩︎
11. Crippa, M., E. Solazzo, D. Guizzardi, et al. (2021): Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Nature Food 2(3), 198–209. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00225-9 ↩︎
12. Xu, X., P. Sharma, et al. (2021): Global greenhouse gas emissions from animal-based foods are twice those of plant-based foods. Nature Food 2(9), 724–732. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00358-x ↩︎
13. Ibid ↩︎
14. Hayek, M. N., H. Harwatt, W. J. Ripple, et al. (2021): The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land. Nature Sustainability 4(1), 21–24. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4 ↩︎
15. Eisen, M. B. & P. O. Brown (2022): Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century. PLOS Climate 1(2), e0000010. Available at: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000010 ↩︎
16. Hallström, E., A. Carlsson-Kanyama, et al. (2015): Environmental impact of dietary change: a systematic review. Journal of Cleaner Production 91 1–11. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652614012931 ↩︎
17. Poore, J. & T. Nemecek (2018): Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science 360(6392), 987–992. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29853680/ ↩︎
18. Theurl, M. C., C. Lauk, G. Kalt, et al. (2020): Food systems in a zero-deforestation world: Dietary change is more important than intensification for climate targets in 2050. Science of The Total Environment 735 139353. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32474248/ ↩︎
19. Ritchie, H. & M. Roser (2024): Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture ↩︎
20. Poore, J. & Nemecek, T. (2018): Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987–992. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29853680/ ↩︎
21. Leip, A., G. Billen, J. Garnier, et al. (2015): Impacts of European livestock production: nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus and greenhouse gas emissions, land-use, water eutrophication and biodiversity. Environmental Research Letters 10(11), IOP Publishing, 115004. Available at: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/115004 ↩︎
22. Liu, M., Zhou, D., Li, P., et al. (2022). A Review of Current Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics in Food Animals. Antibiotics, 11(5), 683. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9133924/ ↩︎
23. WHO (2023): Antimicrobial resistance. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance ↩︎
24. UNEP (n.d.): Antimicrobial resistance: a global threat. Available at: https://www.unep.org/topics/chemicals-and-pollution-action/pollution-and-health/antimicrobial-resistance-global-threat ↩︎
25. Harris, F., C. Moss, E. J. M. Joy, et al. (2019): The Water Footprint of Diets: A Global Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Advances in Nutrition. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31756252/ ↩︎
26. Scarborough, P., M. Clark, L. Cobiac, et al. (2023): Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts. Nature Food. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w ↩︎