Happy Planet Index

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact that was introduced by the New Economics Foundation in 2006. Each country's HPI value is a function of its average subjective life satisfaction, life expectancy at birth, and ecological footprint per capita. The exact function is a little more complex, but conceptually it approximates multiplying life satisfaction and life expectancy and dividing that by the ecological footprint. The index is weighted to give progressively higher scores to nations with lower ecological footprints.

The index is designed to challenge well-established indices of countries’ development, such as the gross domestic product (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI), which are seen as not taking sustainability into account. In particular, GDP is seen as inappropriate, as the usual ultimate aim of most people is not to be rich, but to be happy and healthy.^[1] Furthermore, it is believed that the notion of sustainable development requires a measure of the environmental costs of pursuing those goals.^[2]

Out of the 178 countries surveyed in 2006, the best scoring countries were Vanuatu, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, and Panama.^[3] In 2009, Costa Rica was the best scoring country among the 143 analyzed,^[4] followed by the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guatemala and Vietnam. Tanzania, Botswana and Zimbabwe were featured at the bottom of the list.^[5]

For the 2012 ranking, 151 countries were compared, and the best scoring country for the second time in a row was Costa Rica, followed by Vietnam, Colombia, Belize and El Salvador. The lowest ranking countries in 2012 were Botswana, Chad and Qatar.^[6][7] In 2016, out of 140 countries, Costa Rica topped the index for the third time in a row.^[8] It was followed by Mexico, Colombia, Vanuatu and Vietnam.^[9] At the bottom were Chad, Luxembourg and Togo. The latest update was published in 2021 by the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. According to that update, the top 10 ranking countries (in 2019) were Costa Rica, Vanuatu, Colombia, Switzerland, Ecuador, Panama, Jamaica, Guatemala, Honduras and Uruguay.^[10] The 2021 update also, for the first time, highlighted trends over time, noting for example improving Happy Planet Index scores in Western Europe and in Africa, but declining scores in South Asia.