British thinktank New Economics Foundation aims to measure the capacity of countries to provide “happy and sustainable lives” to their people.
The Happy Planet Index is based on four criteria for calculating the sustainable happiness of populations: the ecological footprint, life expectancy, the degree of income inequality and the rate of satisfaction of the public.
The results are somewhat surprising, with not one Western country figuring in the top ten of the world ranking.
The highest positions are occupied by poorer countries, with Costa Rica ahead of Mexico and Colombia. The first Western country on the list is Norway in 12th position. Luxembourg’s neighbours follow suit, with France in 44th place, Germany 49th and Belgium just inside the top 100 in 87th place.
Luxembourg, however, occupies the penultimate position on the list, between Togo and Chad at the bottom of all rankings.
Although the Grand Duchy ranks highly in terms of life expectancy and well-being, in 16th position out of 140, its vast ecological footprint ensured it plummeted to the bottom of the list - the worst ecological footprint in the world, according to the New Economics Foundation. The number of vehicles and energy consumption per inhabitant are among the highest in the world. If all humanity lived like Luxembourgers, we would need more than nine Planet Earths to sustain us.
The Happy Planet Index displays how nations are turning the planet into natural resources for a happy life for their citizens. The country at the top of the ranking does not have the happiest inhabitants, but the inhabitants whose happiness costs proportionately less to the planet. Thus, Haiti ranks higher than Luxembourg.
Haitians’ average life expectancy is 19 years less than that of Luxembourgers, but consume only 0.6 “global hectares / head”, compared to 15.8 hectares per inhabitant of the Grand Duchy. Compared to Luxembourgers, even the Palestinians, in 22nd place of the index, have better sustainable happiness. Luxembourg has a lot to do to substantially reduce its ecological footprint, and live within environmental limits.
