A Structural Model Proposal for Determining the Factors Affecting the Ecological Footprint

As the negative impact of people on the world as a result of production and consumption activities increases day by day, environmental problems have become inevitable. Reasons such as rapidly increasing population, developing technology and increasing urbanization rate cause ecological problems such as the unconscious consumption of natural resources, the proliferation of industrial and domestic wastes in nature, the extinction of agricultural lands, forests and living species together with the change in people's living standards. Ecological footprint is a methodology developed to determine these negative effects with numerical data, and the trend towards reducing the ecological footprint is gaining importance. In this study, it is aimed to determine the factors affecting the ecological footprint statistically with the structural equation model. The sample of the study consists of 425 people aged 18 and over in Gümüşhane. According to the results of the analysis, it was concluded that while the factors of food, energy and water consumption affect the ecological footprint factor negatively, the waste factor and the accommodation-transportation factor do not have an effect on the ecological footprint factor. This study, which includes the activities that should be implemented to reduce the ecological footprint by examining the factors, can be a source for future studies.