The 2008 EPI provides policymakers and environmental experts an empirically grounded basis for comparing the environmental performance of nearly 150 countries worldwide. While general trends exist, such as a correlation between wealth and strong environmental health performance, some countries perform beyond income-based expectations. The results highlight policy leaders and laggards. They also provide a basis for identifying environmental “best practices.”
The top five countries in the 2008 EPI, in order of best performance, are Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Costa Rica. As expected, developed countries with significant financial resources for environmental management make up a large portion of top performers, although there are exceptions. For example, Costa Rica, a middle-income country, outperforms many developed countries as well as its neighbors.
The bottom five countries in the 2008 EPI in reverse order of performance are Niger, Angola, Sierra Leone, Mauritania, and Mali. These sub-Saharan African countries are among the poorest countries in the world and lack resources for even basic environmental investments.
Mid-ranked performers of note include the United States (39), Russia (28), Brazil (35), Mexico (47), South Africa (97), India (120), and China (105).
Overall there were many more high performing countries in the Environmental Health arena than in Ecosystem Vitality. Sixty-six countries, mostly in the developed world, had scores of 90 or above in Environmental Health, whereas only two scored above 90 in Ecosystem Vitality. The number of high performers in Environmental Health reflects government attention to basic human needs, such as drinking water and sanitation. Unlike Ecosystem Vitality, Environmental Health is highly correlated with wealth, indicating that many of the low-performing countries have not made the investments necessary to curtail environmental pollutants or to provide adequate water and sanitation to their citizens.
Because so many countries had high Environmental Health scores, especially among the top countries, poor performance in Ecosystem Vitality had the ability to reduce a country’s rank substantially. Countries such as Australia, Belgium, and the United States, which have Environmental Health scores over 98, perform well below many members of their peer groups in the EPI because of their substantially lower Ecosystem Vitality scores.
Marks in Ecosystem Vitality are more normally distributed than marks in Environmental Health. This reflects the greater heterogeneity of performance across countries of different income classes, which itself is a reflection of different levels of performance across a wide-ranging list of indicators from greenhouse gas emissions per capita to fisheries management and water quality. Countries perform quite differently from one another depending on levels of industrialization, fossil fuel and resource consumption, trade, and environmental protection.
Countries that scored well in Ecosystem Vitality often did so for very different reasons. Of the two countries with scores above 90, Switzerland’s performance can be primarily attributed to good environmental management whereas Laos’s high score arises from a lack of development and limited stress on the land, air, and water.
Countries falling in the middle of the EPI rankings vary considerably. Some low-ranked countries, such as Kuwait, at 111th position, have Environmental Health scores above 90. This result suggests they have on-going struggles with one or more of the ecosystem vitality policy categories. Likewise, Laos, despite its top ecosystem vitality score, ranks at 101 in the EPI because of a very low environmental health score.
The United States, though very high in the Environmental Health score, ranked at 107th in the Ecosystem Vitality category, below countries like Sudan and Myanmar, which have significant non-environmental challenges and limited resources for environmental protection. Poor performance in the areas of climate change and air pollution reduced the United States’ score significantly.
China and India, containing about one third of the world’s population, received similarly low Ecosystem Vitality scores. Both countries were ranked in the bottom third of the index. However China scored better in the overall EPI because of its higher Environmental Health score.
The overall EPI results offer a useful snapshot of environmental performance. But breaking down the results into political, geographic, and economic peer groups offers an even more valuable perspective because it allows for comparisons between countries. Peer group analysis gives policymakers a way to understand the context of their policy choices and guidance on what is possible in the way of performance in light of the performance of other countries with similar socioeconomic or geographic circumstances. The policies and programs of the peer group leaders present an important guide to best practices and the most efficient approaches to improving environmental health and ecosystem vitality with similar challenges and opportunities.
