Happy Planet Index

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Happy Planet Index, highest rank to lowest rank .

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact, introduced by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), in July 2006. The index is designed to challenge well-established indices of countries’ development, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI), which are seen as not taking sustainability into account. In particular, GDP is seen as inappropriate, as the ultimate aim of most people is not to be rich, but to be happy and healthy.^[1]. Further, the notion of sustainable development requires that we have a measure of the environmental costs of pursuing those goals.^[2]

[edit] Outline

The HPI is based on general utilitarian principles — that most people want to live long and fulfilling lives, and the country which is doing the best is the one that allows its citizens to do so, whilst avoiding infringing on the opportunity of future people and people in other countries to do the same. In effect it operationalises the IUCN's (World Conservation Union) call for a metric capable of measuring 'the production of human well-being (not necessarily material goods) per unit of extraction of or imposition upon nature'.^[3] Human well-being is operationalised as Happy Life Years.^[4] Extraction of or imposition upon nature is proxied for using the ecological footprint per capita, which attempts to estimate the amount of natural resources required to sustain a given country's lifestyle. A country with a large per capita ecological footprint uses more than its fair share of resources, both by drawing resources from other countries, but also by causing permanent damage to the planet which will impact future generations.^[5]

As such, the HPI is not a measure of which are the happiest countries in the world. Countries with relatively high levels of life satisfaction, as measured in surveys, are found from the very top (Colombia in 2nd place) to the very bottom (the USA in 150th place) of the rank order. The HPI is best conceived as a measure of the environmental efficiency of supporting well-being in a given country. Such efficiency could emerge in a country with a medium environmental impact (e.g. Costa Rica) and very high well-being (e.g. Panama), but it could also emerge in a country with only mediocre well-being, but very low environmental impact (e.g. Vietnam).

Each country’s HPI value is a function of its average subjective life satisfaction, life expectancy at birth, and ecological footprint per capita. The exact function is a little more complex, but conceptually it approximates multiplying life satisfaction and life expectancy, and dividing that by the ecological footprint. Most of the life satisfaction data is taken from the World Values Survey and World Database of Happiness, but some is drawn from other surveys, and some is estimated using statistical regression techniques.

The best scoring country in 2006 is the island state of Vanuatu, followed by Colombia and Costa Rica, while Burundi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe form the bottom of the list.

[edit] Views

Happiest = Green > Blue > Purple > Orange > Red = Least Happy; Grey = Data not available The Satisfaction with Life Index shows life satisfaction scores from the HPI without adjusting for ecological footprint and life expectancy.

Much criticism of the index has been due to commentators falsely understanding it to be a measure of happiness, when it is in fact a measure of the ecological efficiency of supporting well-being (see, for example, the following blogs in Heavy Lifting^[6] and Spiked^[7]).

Aside from that, criticism has focused on the following:

• That the HPI completely ignores issues like political freedom, human rights and labor rights^[8].
• That the World Values Survey covers only a minority of the world's nations and is only done every five years. As a result, much of the data for the index must come from other sources, or is estimated using regressions.
• General suspicion of subjective measures of well-being.^[9]
• That the Ecological Footprint is a controversial concept with many criticisms.^[10]

Nevertheless, the HPI and its subcomponents have been considered in political circles. The Ecological Footprint, championed by the WWF, is widely used by both local and national governments, as well as supranational organisations such as the European Commission. The HPI itself was recently cited in the British Conservative Party as a possible substitute for GDP, ^[11] . A recent review of progress indicators produced by the European Parliament^[12], lists the following pros and cons to using the HPI as a measure of national progress:

Pros:

• Considers the actual ‘ends’ of economic activity in the form of life satisfaction and longevity
• Combines wellbeing and environmental aspects
• Simple and easily understandable scheme for calculating the index
• Comparability of results (‘EF’ and ‘life expectancy’ can be applied to different countries)
• Data online available, although some data gaps remain
• Mixture of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ criteria; takes into account people’s well-being and resource use of countries

Cons:

• ‘Happiness’ or ‘life satisfaction’ are very subjective and personal: cultural influences and complex impact of policies on happiness
• Confusion of name: index is not a measure of happiness but rather measure of environmental efficiency of supporting well-being in a given country

[edit] International Ranking

Rank	Country	HPI
1	Vanuatu	68.21
2	Colombia	67.24
3	Costa Rica	66.00
4	Dominica	64.55
5	Panama	63.54
6	Cuba	61.86
7	Honduras	61.75
8	Guatemala	61.69
9	El Salvador	61.66
10	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	61.37
11	Saint Lucia	61.31
12	Vietnam	61.23
13	Bhutan	61.08
14	Samoa	60.98
15	Sri Lanka	60.31
16	Antigua and Barbuda	59.23
17	Philippines	59.17
18	Nicaragua	59.09
19	Kyrgyzstan	59.05
20	Solomon Islands	58.93
21	Tunisia	58.92
22	São Tomé and Príncipe	57.92
23	Indonesia	57.90
24	Tonga	57.90
25	Tajikistan	57.66
26	Venezuela	57.55
27	Dominican Republic	57.14
28	Guyana	56.65
29	Saint Kitts and Nevis	56.14
30	Seychelles	56.07
31	China	55.99
32	Thailand	55.39
33	Peru	55.14
34	Suriname	55.03
35	Yemen	55.00
36	Fiji	54.47
37	Morocco	54.43
38	Mexico	54.39
39	Maldives	53.52
40	Malta	53.26
41	Bangladesh	53.20
42	Comoros	52.92
43	Barbados	52.73
44	Malaysia	52.69
45	Palestinian Authority	52.64
46	Cape Verde	52.41
47	Chile	52.20
48	Timor-Leste	52.04
49	Argentina	51.96
50	Trinidad and Tobago	51.87
51	Belize	51.32
52	Paraguay	51.13
53	Jamaica	51.01
54	Nepal	49.95
55	Mauritius	49.65
56	Mongolia	49.59
57	Uruguay	49.31
58	Ecuador	49.29
59	Uzbekistan	49.22
60	Grenada	48.96
61	Austria	48.77
62	The Gambia	48.67
63	Brazil	48.59
64	Iceland	48.35
65	Switzerland	48.30
66	Italy	48.26
67	Iran	47.23
68	Ghana	46.98
69	Bolivia	46.17
70	Netherlands	46.00
71	Madagascar	45.99
72	Cyprus	45.99
73	Algeria	45.89
74	Luxembourg	45.62
75	Bahamas	44.90
76	Papua New Guinea	44.75
77	Myanmar	44.55
78	Belgium	44.04
79	Slovenia	44.03
80	Oman	43.94
81	Germany	43.83
82	Croatia	43.71
83	Lebanon	43.64
84	Taiwan	43.41
85	Haiti	43.34
86	Syria	43.23
87	Spain	43.04
88	Hong Kong	42.88
89	Saudi Arabia	42.65
90	India	42.46
91	Cambodia	42.15
92	Albania	42.13
93	Jordan	42.05
94	New Zealand	41.92
95	Japan	41.70
96	Republic of the Congo	41.59
97	Egypt	41.58
98	Turkey	41.40
99	Denmark	41.40
100	Brunei	41.16
101	Georgia	41.15
102	South Korea	41.11
103	Bosnia and Herzegovina	40.96
104	Senegal	40.81
105	Azerbaijan	40.69
106	Gabon	40.52
107	Libya	40.33
108	United Kingdom	40.29
109	Laos	40.26
110	Benin	40.10
111	Canada	39.76
112	Pakistan	39.40
113	Ireland	39.38
114	Poland	39.29
115	Norway	39.18
116	Republic of Macedonia	39.14
117	Israel	39.07
118	Namibia	38.41
119	Sweden	38.17
120	Romania	37.72
121	Hungary	37.64
122	Guinea	37.42
123	Finland	37.36
124	Mauritania	37.30
125	Kazakhstan	36.92
126	Togo	36.86
127	Kenya	36.70
128	Czech Republic	36.59
129	France	36.42
130	Armenia	36.15
131	Singapore	36.14
132	Slovakia	35.81
133	Greece	35.71
134	Tanzania	35.08
135	Guinea-Bissau	35.08
136	Portugal	34.83
137	Eritrea	34.49
138	Bahrain	34.35
139	Australia	34.06
140	Mali	33.68
141	Mozambique	33.01
142	Cameroon	32.76
143	Djibouti	32.72
144	Ethiopia	32.53
145	Bulgaria	31.59
146	Nigeria	31.14
147	Moldova	31.12
148	Burkina Faso	30.08
149	Lithuania	29.29
150	United States	28.83
151	Côte d'Ivoire	28.80
152	Rwanda	28.35
153	Sierra Leone	28.24
154	United Arab Emirates	28.20
155	Angola	27.88
156	South Africa	27.80
157	Sudan	27.74
158	Uganda	27.68
159	Kuwait	27.67
160	Latvia	27.27
161	Niger	26.80
162	Malawi	26.66
163	Zambia	25.91
164	Central African Republic	25.90
165	Belarus	25.78
166	Qatar	25.50
167	Botswana	25.42
168	Chad	25.37
169	Turkmenistan	23.96
170	Equatorial Guinea	23.77
171	Lesotho	23.05
172	Russia	22.76
173	Estonia	22.68
174	Ukraine	22.21
175	Democratic Republic of the Congo	20.69
176	Burundi	19.02
177	Swaziland	18.38
178	Zimbabwe	16.64

[edit] See also

• Gross national happiness
• Satisfaction with Life Index
• Genuine Progress Indicator
• Legatum Prosperity Index

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• The Happy Planet Index
• Official website of the New Economics Foundation