Invest in Finland

Finland placed third in the Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index

02/02/2006

Released on 26th January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the new Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks New Zealand first in the world in environmental performance, followed by Sweden (2), Finland (3), the Czech Republic (4), and the UK (5). According to a statement, top-ranked countries all commit significant resources and effort to environmental protection, resulting in strong performance across most policy categories. Characterised as a “work in progress”, the authors of the Pilot 2006 EPI say that it is a pilot index, and that although its usefulness is limited by data problems, methodological questions, and the inherent uncertainties of the environmental field, “it still offers a valuable tool for environmental policymakers”.

Produced by a team of environmental experts at the environment school at Yale University and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the Pilot 2006 EPI identifies targets for environmental performance, measures how close each country comes to these goals, and ranks 133 countries on 16 indicators tracked in six established policy categories. According to its authors, the EPI is a quantitative gauge of pollution-control and natural-resource-management results that provides a powerful tool for improving policymaking and shifting environmental decisionmaking onto firmer analytical foundations.

As well as providing individual rankings, the Pilot 2006 EPI provides “peer group” rankings for each country showing how its performance stacks up against others that are facing similar environmental challenges. According to the authors, these benchmarks allow easy tracking of leaders and laggards on an issue-by-issue and aggregate basis, and the data also supports effort to identify “best practices” in the environmental realm.

Tracking progress towards the Millennium Development Goals

In the Pilot 2006 EPI, the focus is on two basic objectives: (1) protecting human health from environmental stresses, and (2) promoting ecosystem vitality and sound natural resource management. The index tracks six underlying policy categories - Environmental Health, Air Quality, Water Resources, Biodiversity and Habitat, Productive Natural Resources, and Sustainable Energy - using baseline datasets and associated policy targets. The proximity-to-target measures provide both a way of gauging environmental results in general and a concrete set of metrics for tracking progress toward the environmental dimensions of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in particular.

In the Conclusions section of the Pilot 2006 EPI, the authors say “A country’s level of development emerges as an important driver of environmental performance. At every level of development, however, some countries show much better results than their peers. This suggests that policy choices (and perhaps other factors) are also important determinants of environmental performance.” Commenting on the role played by national governments, the authors say “Good environmental results correlate significantly with good governance. Policy emphasis at the national and global levels on establishing the rule of law, eliminating corruption, promoting a robust policy dialogue, and setting up effective regulatory institutions appears fully justified.”

“All governments stand to benefit from using the EPI”

In the 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), published in January 2005, Finland was ranked first in the world in environmental sustainability. Commenting on the relationship between the ESI and the Pilot 2006 EPI, the EPI’s authors say that while both studies contribute to data-driven environmental decisionmaking, there are important differences in the perspectives transmitted to environmental policymakers, and that: “The EPI does not seek to replace the ESI; instead, the two indices supplement each other.” Expanding on this, they say “The ESI provides a gauge of a country’s long-term environment trajectory. Constructed around the concept of “sustainability,” it tracks the environmental past, present, and future. In contrast, the EPI addresses the need for a gauge of policy performance in reducing environmental stresses on human health and promoting ecosystem vitality and sound natural-resource management.”

Commenting on the overall situation, the authors of the Pilot 2006 EPI say “No country has obtained a position of long-term environmental sustainability,” and that “Every country lags its peers on some issues. This suggests that all governments stand to benefit from using the Pilot EPI to identify policy options and models to borrow from other countries. Globally, considerable work remains to be done to put the planet on the path toward environmental sustainability.”

Further information:

All sections of  the Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index are available for download in PDF format from http://www.yale.edu/epi/

For the Conclusions, see pages 45-46 of the Main Report at:http://www.yale.edu/epi/2006EPI_MainReport.pdf

For individual country profiles, see Appendix C at:http://www.yale.edu/epi/2006EPI_AppendixC.pdf

For an explanation of the differences between the Pilot 2006 EPI and the 2005 ESI:http://www.yale.edu/epi/2006EPI_AppendixE.pdf

Article on this website concerning Finland’s number-one ranking in the 2005 ESI (published on 4th February 2005): http://www.investinfinland.fi/news/2005/en_GB/1107519971179/