Vienna’s global biodiversity footprint. A multi-scale analysis outlining options to reduce urban pressures on biodiversity
Urban governments are increasingly engaging in biodiversity conservation within their own city’s territories. While these conservation efforts are important, cities exert much higher pressures on biodiversity beyond their own territories related to the provision of resources required to supply urban populations with food, energy and other products. Funded by the Viennese Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), the project develops an approach to quantify, map and predict the national and global “biodiversity footprint” of large cities. It will calculate and maps the national and global biodiversity footprint of Vienna’s consumption of biomass-based products and explore possible reductions in the city’s biodiversity footprint resulting from changes in consumption and increased efficiency in the biomass provision chains. The project involves participatory tools to prioritize potential options for policy interventions based on the experience of policy makers and stakeholders from civil society organizations It will contribute to the exploration of options that exploit the considerable potential of cities towards UN sustainability development goals.
The project ended in December 2022.
