Ever wondered what the greenest countries in the world are?
A lot of factors can influence how you rank countries by 'greeness,' such as their current and future emissions, their environmental policies, the quality of their air and water, and the health of their ecosystems.
With this in mind, we've settled on using the ranking provided by Yale University's Environmental Performance Index. We'll take a look at how each country has earned its spot on our top 11 greenest countries list.
What are the greenest countries in the world?This ranking is based on results from the most recent Environmental Performance Index (EPI), compiled by Yale's Centre for Environmental Law and Policy.
The EPI awards scores to countries based on 40 key indicators, which include environmental policy, projected greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, air and water quality, and biodiversity.
The average global environmental score is 43, 1 is the lowest possible score, and 100 is the ideal. All the top 11 countries have a score higher than 60. Let's look at how they managed that.
3. Finland
Finland is ranked third, with a total score of 76.5.
Two categories largely contribute to this ranking. Firstly, it came third in the Climate Change Mitigation category.
Emissions in Finland are decreasing year on year, falling by 22% between 2005 and 2019. This shouldn't be surprising, since Finland is decarbonising domestic heating and is among the top countries for heat pump installations, with 24,159 heat pumps per 100,000 people.
Finland also ranks second in the Environmental Health' category. This measures how well a country protects the health of its population through the lens of air and water quality, and waste management.
According to statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO), Finland has some of the cleanest air in the world, with the concentration of fine particulate matter at 6 micrograms per cubic metre on average. This is well below the WHO requirement of 10 micrograms per cubic metre.
For context, in UK cities, the concentration of fine particulate matter regularly goes above 40 micrograms per cubic metre.
Summary
The EPI ranking is a good place to start when it comes to assessing how far along countries are on their journey to protecting the environment, but it shouldn't be taken as gospel.
The EPI itself admits there are data gaps, especially when it comes to scoring "agriculture, water resources, and threats to biodiversity."
This list is more of a measure of the environmental progress made by countries, rather than a measure of how 'green' they actually are.
If you want more rankings, take a look at which countries are winning the net zero race, or which countries use the most green energy.