The New Economics Foundation’s second global ranking of the ecological efficiency with which nations deliver long and happy lives for their citizens – the “Happy Planet Index” – has ranked Peru as the world’s 28th “greenest and happiest” country.
The index, which is based on improved data for 143 countries around the world, shows that globally, we are still far from achieving good lives within the Earth’s finite resource limits.
“As the world faces the triple crunch of deep financial crisis, accelerating climate change and the looming peak in oil production, we desperately need a new compass to guide us,“ said Nic Marks, founder of the center for well-being at the New Economics Foundation, or NEF.
“We must use the Happy Planet Index to break the spell and chart a new course for a high well-being low-carbon economy before our high-consuming lifestyles plunge us into the chaos of irreversible climate change.”
According to the NEF, middle-income countries – like Peru and those in South East Asia – tend to be the closest to achieving sustainable well-being. Latest results indicate that nine of the ten highest-scoring nations are Latin American – with Costa Rica topping the chart – and that the U.S., China and India were all “greener and happier” twenty years ago.
The NEF is an independent think-and-do tank founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit, which forced issues such as international debt onto the agenda of the G7 and G8 summits.
