Environmental Sustainability Index
Encyclopedia
The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) was a composite index published from 1999 to 2005 that tracked 21 elements of environmental sustainability covering natural resource endowments, past and present pollution
levels, environmental management efforts, contributions to protection of the global commons, and a society's capacity to improve its environmental performance over time.
Center for Environmental Law and Policy
in collaboration with Columbia University's
Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), and the World Economic Forum
.
The Environmental Sustainability Index was developed to evaluate environmental sustainability relative to the paths of other countries. Due to a shift in focus by the teams developing the ESI, a new index was developed, the Environmental Performance Index
(EPI), that uses outcome-oriented indicators, then working as a benchmark index that can be more easily used by policy makers, environmental scientists, advocates and the general public. The EPI has been published in 2006, 2008, and 2010.
Pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...
levels, environmental management efforts, contributions to protection of the global commons, and a society's capacity to improve its environmental performance over time.
History
The ESI was published between 1999 to 2005 by Yale University'sYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
Center for Environmental Law and Policy
Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy
The Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy is a joint initiative between the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Yale Law School.-Mission:...
in collaboration with Columbia University's
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), and the World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
.
The Environmental Sustainability Index was developed to evaluate environmental sustainability relative to the paths of other countries. Due to a shift in focus by the teams developing the ESI, a new index was developed, the Environmental Performance Index
Environmental Performance Index
The Environmental Performance Index is a method of quantifying and numerically benchmarking the environmental performance of a country's policies. This index was developed from the Pilot Environmental Performance Index, first published in 2002, and designed to supplement the environmental targets...
(EPI), that uses outcome-oriented indicators, then working as a benchmark index that can be more easily used by policy makers, environmental scientists, advocates and the general public. The EPI has been published in 2006, 2008, and 2010.
See also
- Environmental Performance IndexEnvironmental Performance IndexThe Environmental Performance Index is a method of quantifying and numerically benchmarking the environmental performance of a country's policies. This index was developed from the Pilot Environmental Performance Index, first published in 2002, and designed to supplement the environmental targets...
- Environmental Vulnerability IndexEnvironmental Vulnerability IndexThe Environmental Vulnerability Index is a measurement devised by the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission , the United Nations Environment Program and others to characterize the relative severity of various types of environmental issues suffered by 243 enumerated individual nations and...