Recent Research: Getting Growth Wrong: U.S. Ranks 28th in Global Environmental Index

The annual Earth Day celebrations provide an opportunity for the least environmentally friendly corporations and politicians in America to appear green by sponsoring litter pick-ups or standing in front of hydrogen fueled cars. More often, however, the U.S. policy debate sees a "jobs versus environment" battle, or most recently, cheaper gas versus environmental integrity. A recent index prepared by Yale University and Columbia University for the World Economic Forum reveals, however, most of the world's top innovative countries are also among the highest performers on 16 environmental indicators, ahead of the U.S. More telling, is that the areas the U.S. is weakest -- renewable energy, water resources, and greenhouse gas emissions -- also provide some of the greatest opportunities or obstacles for economic growth as the 21st century unfolds.

Produced by the Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) identifies targets for environmental performance and measures how close each country comes to these goals. New Zealand ranks first in the Index, followed by Sweden and Finland. The U.S. ranks 28th, significantly below other highly developed nations such as the United Kingdom (5) and Canada (8), the study notes.

The Index ranks 133 countries on 16 indicators tracked in six established policy categories, including environmental health, air quality, water resources, biodiversity and habitat, productive natural resources, and sustainable energy. Incomplete data excluded 60 countries from the 2006 EPI. For each indicator, a relevant long-term public health or ecosystem sustainability goal is identified. The study outlines a number of policy conclusions:

• Despite data gaps, methodological limitations and serious scientific uncertainties, the EPI demonstrates that environmental policy results can be tracked with the same outcome-oriented and performance-based rigor that appliers to other global development goals.
• Target-based environmental performance benchmarks make cross-country comparisons possible on an issue-by-issue and aggregate basis.
• Every country confronts critical environmental challenges. Developed countries often suffer from pollution and degraded ecosystems, and developing countries face water and sanitation problems and the need for established governance structures to support pollution control and natural resource management.
• Wealth and a country's level of economic development emerge as significant determinants of environmental outcomes, but policy choices also affect performance.
• Top-ranked EPI countries emerge as among the most productive and competitive in the world, but industrialization and economic development lead to environmental stresses, the risk of degradation of ecosystems and depletion of natural resources.

The authors note that a number of existing environmental metrics have been criticized in the past for being overly broad and not focused enough on current results to be useful as a policy guide. However, the EPI tries to address this by focusing on current environmental performance within a context of sustainability, and more narrowly tracks actual results for a core set of issues that governments can be held accountable, according to the authors. The Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index is available at: http://www.yale.edu/epi/

Links to this paper and nearly 4,000 additional TBED-related research reports, strategic plans and other papers can be found at the Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Resource Center, jointly developed by the Technology Administration and SSTI, at: http://www.tbedresourcecenter.org/.