Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, Yale University

Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University

In collaboration with the World Economic Forum

With support from The McCall MacBain Foundation and Mark T. DeAngelis

epi.yale.edu

2018 ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE INDEX

Global metrics for the environment: Ranking country performance on high-priority environmental issues

FPO

Environmental Health

Ecosystem Vitality

AsiaCaribbeanE. Europe & EurasiaEurope & N. America Latin America Mid East & N. AfricaPacificSub-Saharan Africa

RegionsUSA

Burundi

Congo

Haiti

China

India

Switzerland

FinlandSlovakia

9.3 45.4 74.063.2 99.3

26.0

45.5

52.9

62.1

83.3

Careful measurement of environmental trends and progress provides a foundation for effective policymaking. The 2018 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks 180 countries on 24 performance indicators across ten issue categories covering environmental health and ecosystem vitality. These metrics provide a gauge at a national scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy goals. The EPI thus offers a scorecard that highlights leaders and laggards in environmental performance, gives insight on best practices, and provides guidance for countries that aspire to be leaders in sustainability.

Innovations in the 2018 EPI data and methodology have generated new rankings founded on the latest advances in environmental science and analysis. Switzerland leads the world based on strong performance across most issues, especially air quality and climate protection. In general, high scorers exhibit long-standing commitments to protecting public health, preserving natural resources, and decoupling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from economic activity.

India and Bangladesh come in near the bottom of the rankings. Low scores on the

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

EPI are indicative of the need for national sustainability efforts on a number of fronts, especially cleaning up air quality, protecting biodiversity, and reducing GHG emissions. Some of the laggards face broader challenges, such as civil unrest, but others seem to be suffering the effects of weak governance. The EPI draws attention to the issues on which policymakers must take further action.

While the EPI provides a framework for greater analytic rigor in environmental policymaking, it also reveals a number of severe data gaps. As the EPI project has highlighted for two decades, better data collection, reporting, and verification across a range of environmental issues are urgently needed. The existing gaps are especially pronounced in the areas of sustainable agriculture, water resources, waste management, and threats to biodiversity. Supporting stronger global data systems thus emerges as essential to better management of sustainable development challenges.

This Summary for Policymakers contains a snapshot of the 2018 EPI’s framework and results. Complete methods, data, and results—including for individual countries—are available online at epi.yale.edu.

The world has entered a new era of data-driven environmental policymaking. With the UN’s 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, governments are increasingly being asked to explain their performance on a range of pollution control and natural resource management challenges with reference to quantitative metrics. A more data-driven and empirical approach to environmental protection promises to make it easier to spot problems, track trends, highlight policy successes and failures, identify best practices, and optimize the gains from investments in environmental protection.

The overall EPI rankings indicate which countries are doing best against the array of environmental pressures that every nation faces. From a policy perspective, greater value derives from drilling down into the data to analyze performance by specific issue, policy category, peer group, and country. Such an analysis can assist in refining policy choices, understanding the determinants of environmental progress, and maximizing the return on governmental investments.

DATA-DRIVEN METRICS

TWO DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE

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The relationship between sub-scores on the two policy objectives for all 180 countries in the 2018 EPI illustrate that Environmental Health and Ecosystem Vitality are distinct dimensions of environmental performance—which may be in some tension as economic growth creates resources to invest but adds to pollution burdens and habitat stress.

KEY FINDINGS

2018 EPI FRAMEWORK

Air quality remains the leading environmental threat to public health. In 2016 the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimated that diseases related to airborne pollutants contributed to two-thirds of all life- years lost to environmentally related deaths and disabilities. Air pollution issues are especially acute in rapidly urbanizing and industrializing nations such as India and China.

The world has made great strides in protecting marine and terrestrial habitats, exceeding the international goal for marine protection in 2014. Additional indicators measuring terrestrial protected areas suggest, however, that more work needs to be done to ensure the presence of high-quality habitat free from human pressures.

Most countries improved GHG emissions intensity over the past ten years. Three-fifths of countries in the EPI have declining CO2 intensities, while 85–90% of countries have declining intensities for methane, nitrous oxide, and black carbon. These trends are promising yet must be accelerated to meet the ambitious targets of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

With 20 years of experience, the EPI reveals a tension between two fundamen-tal dimensions of sustainable develop-ment: (1) environmental health, which rises with economic growth and prosperi-ty, and (2) ecosystem vitality, which comes under strain from industrialization and urbanization. Good governance emerges as the critical factor required to balance these distinct dimensions of sustainability.

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The 2018 EPI Framework organizes 24 indicators into ten issue categories and two policy objectives. Weights used in each level of aggregation shown in parentheses.

Wastewater Treatment (100%)

Sustainable Nitrogen Management (100%)

SO2 Emissions (50%)

NOX Emissions (50%)

Air Pollution (10%) Agriculture (5%)Water Resources (10%)

ecosystemvitality (60%)

Tree Cover Loss (100%) Fish Stock Status (50%)

Regional Marine Trophic Index (50%)

Biome Protection– National (20%)

Biome Protection–Global (20%)

Marine Protected Areas (20%)

Species Protection Index (20%)

Species Habitat Index (10%)

Representativeness Index (10%)

CO2 Emissions–Total (50%)

CO2 Emissions– Power (20%)

Methane Emissions (20%)

N2O Emissions (5%)

Black Carbon Emissions (5%)

Biodiversity & Habitat (25%)

Climate & Energy (30%)Fisheries (10%)Forests (10%)

Lead Exposure (100%)Sanitation (50%)

Drinking Water (50%)

PM2.5 Exceedance (30%)

PM2.5 Exposure (30%)

Household Solid Fuels (40%)

Water Quality (30%)Air Quality (65%) Heavy Metals (5%)

environmentalhealth (40%)

objectives:

issues:

indicators:

2018 EPI RANKINGS

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23242526271981720282930312932333435362137383922234041424312442425452646

56176

18781976285976973

101089

2011111212458139214131410226

235

157

16176

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101112131415161

17112

182

19202122123124512671892

10111233

133

14415434534165

49.8849.8049.7949.6649.5449.5249.2147.9347.8547.2547.2246.9646.9246.6246.3745.8845.3445.3245.2545.0544.7844.7344.6744.5544.2844.2443.7143.6843.4143.2343.2243.2042.9442.8342.5442.4242.3941.8441.7841.6240.8140.3240.0439.3539.3439.2438.1737.7437.5037.4436.4235.7433.7833.7433.7331.4430.5730.4129.5627.43

62.2862.2062.0761.9261.3361.2161.0861.0660.7060.6160.4059.6959.3859.3059.2259.1858.9058.5858.4658.1657.7957.6557.5157.4957.4957.4757.4257.1856.9456.6356.1855.9855.7655.6955.2655.1555.0454.9954.8654.7654.5654.5054.2054.0153.9353.9153.0952.9652.8752.3352.1451.9751.7051.5151.4951.3250.9750.9350.8350.74

87.4283.9581.6080.9080.5179.8979.1278.9778.7778.6478.5778.3978.3777.4977.3876.9675.9675.4675.0174.6974.1273.6072.8472.6072.1871.9171.1970.6069.3367.8567.8567.8067.6867.5767.3666.4866.1266.1066.0265.4665.4565.2265.0164.9864.7864.7164.6564.3164.2364.1163.8963.7963.5763.4763.4262.7162.4962.3562.3362.30

ThailandMicronesiaLibyaGhanaTimor-LesteSenegalMalawiGuyanaTajikistanKenyaBhutanViet NamIndonesiaGuineaMozambiqueUzbekistanChadMyanmarCôte d'IvoireGabonEthiopiaSouth AfricaGuinea-BissauVanuatuUgandaComorosMaliRwandaZimbabweCambodiaSolomon IslandsIraqLaosBurkina FasoSierra LeoneGambiaRepublic of CongoBosnia and HerzegovinaTogoLiberiaCameroonSwazilandDjiboutiPapua New GuineaEritreaMauritaniaBeninAfghanistanPakistanAngolaCentral African RepublicNigerLesothoHaitiMadagascarNepalIndiaDem. Rep. CongoBangladeshBurundi

KuwaitJordanArmeniaPeruMontenegroEgyptLebanonMacedoniaBrazilSri LankaEquatorial GuineaMexicoDominicaArgentinaMalaysiaAntigua and BarbudaUnited Arab EmiratesJamaicaNamibiaIranBelizePhilippinesMongoliaSerbiaChileSaudi ArabiaEcuadorAlgeriaCabo VerdeMauritiusSaint LuciaBoliviaBarbadosGeorgiaKiribatiBahrainNicaraguaBahamasKyrgyzstanNigeriaKazakhstanSamoaSurinameSão Tomé and PríncipeParaguayEl SalvadorFijiTurkeyUkraineGuatemalaMaldivesMoldovaBotswanaHondurasSudanOmanZambiaGrenadaTanzaniaChina

SwitzerlandFranceDenmarkMaltaSwedenUnited KingdomLuxembourgAustriaIrelandFinlandIcelandSpainGermanyNorwayBelgiumItalyNew ZealandNetherlandsIsraelJapanAustraliaGreeceTaiwanCyprusCanadaPortugalUnited States of AmericaSlovakiaLithuaniaBulgariaCosta RicaQatarCzech RepublicSloveniaTrinidad and TobagoSt. Vincent & GrenadinesLatviaTurkmenistanSeychellesAlbaniaCroatiaColombiaHungaryBelarusRomaniaDominican RepublicUruguayEstoniaSingaporePolandVenezuelaRussiaBrunei DarussalamMoroccoCubaPanamaTongaTunisiaAzerbaijanSouth Korea

121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180

616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384848687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120

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REGSCORECOUNTRYRANK REGSCORECOUNTRYRANK REGSCORECOUNTRYRANK

AsiaLatin America

CaribbeanMid East & N.Africa

E.Europe & EurasiaPacific

Europe & N.AmericaSub-Saharan Africa

Rank, EPI Score, and Regional Standing (REG, shown in color) for 180 countries. ©

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