Happy Planet Index

UK is 108th in the Happy Planet Index

A new global measure of progress, the `Happy Planet Index\', measures the environmental cost with which countries deliver lives of different length and happiness to reveal for the first time that happiness doesn\'t have to cost the Earth. It shows that people can live long, happy lives without using more than their fair share of the Earth\'s resources.

The Happy Planet Index, an innovative new index from nef (the new economics foundation) launched today, Wednesday 12 July 2006, is the first ever index to combine environmental impact with well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which countries provide long and happy lives.

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) strips the view of the economy back to its absolute basics: what we put in (resources), and what comes out (human lives of different length and happiness). The resulting Index of the 178 nations for which data is available, reveals that the world as a whole has a long way to go.  In terms of delivering long and meaningful lives within the Earth's environmental limits - all nations could do better.  No country achieves an overall `high' score on the Index, and no country does well on all three indicators.

"It is clear that no single nation listed in the Happy Planet Index has got everything right. But the Index does reveal patterns that show how we might better achieve long and happy lives for all, whilst living within our environmental means. The challenge is - can we learn the lessons and apply them? Governments the world over have been concentrating on the targets for too long. If you have the wrong map, you are unlikely to reach your destination", says Nic Marks, head of nef's Centre for well-being.

The HPI shows that around the world, high levels of resource consumption do not reliably produce high levels of well-being (life-satisfaction), and that it is possible to produce high levels of well-being without excessive consumption of the Earth's resources.