Medieval

EMBARGO

28.5.2012 00:00

nef (the new economics foundation) is a registered charity founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES), which forced issues such as international debt onto the agenda of the G8 summit meetings. It has taken a lead in helping establish new coalitions and organisations such as the Jubilee 2000 debt campaign; the Ethical Trading Initiative; theUK Social Investment Forum; and new ways to measure social and economic well-being.

Contents
Executive summary .................................................. 3 1. New economy, new indicators ............................. 4 2. A measure of sustainable well-being .................. 6 3. Results: An amber planet .................................. 10 4. Steps towards a happy planet........................... 17 Appendix: Calculating the Happy Planet Index.... 19 Endnotes ................................................................. 22

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The Happy Planet Index is a new measure of progress that focusses on what matters: sustainable well-being for all. It tells us how well nations are doing in terms of supporting their inhabitants to live good lives now, while ensuring thatothers can do the same in the future. In a time of uncertainty, the Index provides a clear compass pointing nations in the direction they need to travel, and helping groups around the world to advocate for a vision of progress that is truly about people’s lives.

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Executive summary
There is a growing global consensus that we need new measures of progress. It is critical that these measuresclearly reflect what we value – something the current approach fails to do. The Happy Planet Index (HPI) measures what matters. It tells us how well nations are doing in terms of supporting their inhabitants to live good lives now, while ensuring that others can do the same in the future, i.e. sustainable well-being for all. The third global HPI report reveals that this is largely still an unhappyplanet – with both highand low-income countries facing many challenges on their way to meeting this same overall goal. But it also demonstrates that good lives do not have to cost the Earth – that the countries where well-being is highest are not always the ones that have the biggest environmental impact. The HPI is one of the first global measures of sustainable well-being. It uses global data onexperienced well-being, life expectancy, and Ecological Footprint to generate an index revealing which countries are most efficient at producing long, happy lives for their inhabitants, whilst maintaining the conditions for future generations to do the same. Happy Planet Index ≈ Experienced well-being x Life expectancy Ecological Footprint

This simple headline indicator gives a clear sense ofwhether a society is heading in the right direction. It provides a vital tool to ensure fundamental issues are accounted for in crucial policy decisions. At heart, the HPI is a measure of efficiency. It calculates the number of Happy Life Years (life expectancy adjusted for experienced well-being) achieved per unit of resource use. This year’s results: ◗ Confirm that we are still not living on ahappy planet, with no country achieving high and sustainable well-being and only nine close to doing so. ◗ Highlight that eight of those nine countries are in Latin America and the Caribbean. ◗ Show the highest ranking Western European nation to be Norway in 29th place, just behind New Zealand in 28th place. ◗ Place the USA in 105th position out of 151 countries. ◗ Demonstrate how the scores ofhigh-income countries are brought down considerably by their large Ecological Footprints. The HPI is a headline indicator that provides an overall picture, but countries which do well on the HPI can still suffer many problems. Other indicators will also be necessary to fully assess how societies are doing. nef (the new economics foundation) has developed a measurement framework of which HPI is one...