Davos: Switzerland Leads Global Environmental Performance Rankings

Nestled within the heart of the Swiss Alps, the ski slopes of Davos are unusually quiet this week as the mountain resort plays host to over 6,000 CEOs, presidents, prime ministers, media representatives and rock stars attending the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

As forum participants breath the fresh mountain air and marvel at today’s particularly sunny blue skies, the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy together with the Earth Institute at Columbia University have released their 2008 Environmental Performance Index. The report fittingly awards their Swiss hosts top place amongst 149 other countries based on 25 indicators of pollution control and natural resource management.

Switzerland takes the number one spot ahead of Sweden, Norway and Finland having performed particularly strongly in the areas of environmental conservation and renewable energy. The report shows a general correlation between national wealth, sound environmental management and positive human health scores. European nations perform particularly well amongst the developed world.

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Equally notable is the poor performance of the United States, being ranked 39^th and below many third world countries due to poor performance in eco system management, particularly due to air emissions and climate change.

The publishers of the report hope that providing an objective set of indicators to judge environmental performance will provide policy makers with a vital tool to guide decision making. However, in this context it is important that we consider the fact that the report represents the current status-quo only, and does not factor in future trends which have the potential to significantly alter today’s picture.

Until now, wealthy nations have generally been successful in managing their environmental impact, but will face future challenges as demand begins to outpace nature’s ability to supply. Switzerland is a case in point, already having intensive internal debate over future energy supply with the possibility that additional fossil fuel based electricity production may be required to plug the gap, potentially undermining their excellent record on renewable energy. Notable within the details of the report are the significantly higher Co2 emissions of developed nations compared with the rest of the world.

So, despite some very encouraging performances, we hope that the surroundings at Davos will encourage leaders to fully consider the benefits of making sustainable policy decisions with long term environmental performance in mind.

Environmental Performance Index Top 10

1. Switzerland
2. Sweden
3. Norway
4. Finland
5. Costa Rica
6. Austria
7. New Zealand
8. Latvia
9. Colombia
10. France

Source: Yale University. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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