Nordics do better in environmental sustainability

You may have heard that Stockholm is the cleanest capital in the world, that Finland leads in sustainable forest management or that Norway is one of the world's leading renewable energy suppliers.

"The Nordic countries rank highest in environmental sustainability". These are the conclusions from the most recent update of the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), a project conducted jointly by Yale University (USA), Columbia University (USA), and the World Economic Forum.

According to a 142 nation study released at the 2002 meeting of the World Economic Forum in New York, Finland leads the world in environmental sustainability, followed by Norway and Sweden in second and third place respectively. Nordic neighbours Iceland rank eighth on the list and the Baltic republic of Latvia climbs up to an excellent tenth place.


Respect for the environment

According to the study, the Nordic countries rank at the top because of their success in minimizing air and water pollution, their high institutional capacity to handle environmental problems, and their comparatively low levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

The study's findings were based on calculations of 20 key indicators in five categories: environmental systems, environmental stresses, human vulnerability to environmental risks, a society's institutional capacity to respond to environmental threats, and a nation's stewardship of the shared resources of the global commons.

Among the 20 indicators that comprise the ESI are factors such as urban air quality, water, and the strength of environmental regulation. The study builds on 68 underlying databases, representing the most comprehensive publicly available collection of environmental indicators in existence.


Cross-National comparisons

The ESI takes account of environmental "endowments", current results as well as future capacity to manage environmental challenges. "The ESI permits systematic cross-national environmental comparisons," says ESI Project Director Daniel Esty of Yale's Center for Environmental Law and Policy. "Environmental decision making has long been plagued by uncertainties and a lack of critical information. As a result, choices are made on the basis of generalized observations and best guesses, or worse yet, rhetoric or emotion. The ESI moves us toward a more analytically rigorous and data driven approach to environmental decision making."

Just as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) provides a broad-gauge indicator of economic success, the ESI distills a country's capacity for sustained environmental strength into a single number ranging from 0 to 100. Much like a cumulative grade point average for the environment, this number provides a comprehensive snapshot of a country's likely environmental quality of life over the next generation or two.

The ESI provides a basis for addressing a number of pressing policy questions, such as: does good environmental performance come at a price in terms of economic success? The ESI suggests not. Finland and Belgium, for example, have similar GDP per capita, but are ranked widely apart by the ESI. Finland has a $22,008 GDP per capita and a 73.7 score, while Belgium has a GDP of $24,533 per capita and scores 38.6.

"The ESI shows that a nation's economic status does not necessarily predict its environmental success," says Marc Levy of Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), a unit of the Columbia Earth Institute.


The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI)

The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) is a measure of overall progress towards environmental sustainability, developed for 142 countries.

The ESI is the result of collaboration among the World Economic Forum's Global Leaders for Tomorrow Environment Task Force, The Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).

The ESI scores are based upon a set of 20 core indicators, each of which combines two to eight variables for a total of 68 underlying variables. The ESI permits cross-national comparisons of environmental progress in a systematic and quantitative fashion.

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