The index

The 2016 Environmental Performance Index is a project lead by the Yale University and Columbia University, in collaboration with the Samuel Family Foundation, McCall MacBain Foundation, and the World Economic Forum.

Environmental Health and Ecosystem Vitality are the two main objectives of EPI. The index is constructed through the calculation and aggregation of more than 20 indicators reflecting national-level environmental data. These indicators are combined into nine issue categories that encompass high-priority environmental policy issues including agriculture, air quality, biodiversity and habitat, climate and energy, forests, fisheries, health impacts, water resources, and water and sanitation.

Complete methods, data, and results are available online at www.epi.yale.edu.

Key findings

In the ranking Finland has taken the top spot, followed by Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, and Slovenia. Somalia again takes last place followed, in ascending order, by Eritrea, Madagascar, Niger, and Afghanistan.

Examining trends in environmental performance over the last decade, nearly every country has improved. Particularly countries in SubSaharan Africa have seen the greatest gains, investments in clean water, sanitation, and energy infrastructure are the main contributors to improvements in these nations’ scores.

The world is making progress addressing some environmental issues while others have worsened considerably. The number of people lacking access to clean water has been nearly cut in half from 960 million in 2000 to 550 million today, nations also show strong commitments to habitat protection. Butmore deaths globally occur due to poor air quality than water; 23 percent of countries have no wastewater treatment; 2.4 billion people lack access to sanitation; more than 3.5 billion people live in nations with unsafe air quality; 34 percent of global fish stocks are overexploited or collapsed.

EPI and other environmental indicators

The EPI is not a fully comprehensive picture of national and global environmental issues. But it represents an important signal policymakers, aligning EPI’s indicators with the Sustainable Development Goals provides a baseline for evaluating national performance and shows how far countries are from reaching global targets innovating in key areas.

EPI measures the environmental performance in preservation human health and ecosystem, this not necessarily coincide with the environmental impacts of the countries. A lot of other index can be observed to have a more complete vision of the environmental problematic, as the Planetary Boundaires and Ecological Footprint. Linked to the footprint, the Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.

Read the report.