Our thinking

Who’s the greenest of them all?

9 April, 2021

Thinking about moving? What are the indicators you consider when choosing the country in which you live?

The University of Yale developed the Environmental Performance Index which measures the performance of 180 countries across 32 indicators that range from climate change mitigation to air quality and waste water management to help rank the greenest countries. Users can go online to see the detail of the ranking or see rankings per indicator.

For us at Good Business, it’s given our fantasy future house hunting a welcome extra dimension…

If Gemma wanted to prioritise a country which is really looking to preserve and protect ecosystems, she would move to Denmark (1st) or perhaps more surprisingly, to Romania (3rd). If Sarah wanted to move to a place with great waste management, she could choose between the Netherlands or Colombia (joint 1st) or why not Mauritius which ranks 7th, in front of Norway, France and Germany.

But beyond fuelling imaginary futures, we think this index is great because it can, in itself, be a driver of further interest and change. It shows that people want to know how countries are faring on these measures, which acts as momentum for action.  And the ranking element gives this an added edge – the hope is that it creates a race for the top, and healthy competition drives positive change.

There’s also good news for all of us at Good Business – overall the UK ranks fourth, so it doesn’t look like we’ll need to be leaving any time soon!

By Marie Guérinet