Happy Planet Index

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Happy Planet Index

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index

Index

An index is a system used to make finding information easier.Index may also refer to:* Index , a detailed list, usually arranged alphabetically, of the specific information in a publication...
of human well-being and environmental impact, introduced by the New Economics Foundation

New Economics Foundation

The New Economics Foundation is an independent Great Britain think-tank, or, in their own description, a "think-and-do tank".The group's goal is to promote their progressivism view of welfare economics and environmentalism....
(NEF), in July 2006. The index is designed to challenge well-established indices of countries’ development, such as Gross Domestic Product

Gross domestic product

File:GDP nominal per capita world map IMF 2008.pngThe gross domestic product or gross domestic income is one of the measures of national income and output for a given country's economy....
(GDP) and the Human Development Index

Human Development Index

The Human Development Index is an index used to rank countries by level of "human development", which usually also implies to determine whether a country is a developed country, developing country....
(HDI), which are seen as not taking sustainability

Sustainability

Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the ability to maintain a certain process or state. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems....
into account. In particular, GDP is seen as inappropriate, as the ultimate aim of most people is not to be rich, but to be happy

Happiness

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Encyclopedia

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index

Index

New Economics Foundation

Gross domestic product

Human Development Index

Sustainability

Happiness

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. A variety of Philosophy, Religion, Psychology and Biology approaches have been taken to defining happiness and identifying its sources....
and healthy.. Further, the notion of sustainable development requires that we have a measure of the environmental costs of pursuing those goals.

Outline

The HPI is based on general utilitarian principles — that most people want to live long and fulfilling lives, and the country which is doing the best is the one that allows its citizens to do so, whilst avoiding infringing on the opportunity of future people and people in other countries to do the same. In effect it operationalises the IUCN's (World Conservation Union) call for a metric capable of measuring 'the production of human well-being (not necessarily material goods) per unit of extraction of or imposition upon nature'. Human well-being is operationalised as Happy Life Years. Extraction of or imposition upon nature is proxied for using the ecological footprint

Ecological footprint

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's Ecology capacity to regenerate....
per capita, which attempts to estimate the amount of natural resources required to sustain a given country's lifestyle. A country with a large per capita ecological footprint uses more than its fair share of resources, both by drawing resources from other countries, but also by causing permanent damage to the planet which will impact future generations. As such, the HPI is not a measure of which are the happiest countries in the world. Countries with relatively high levels of life satisfaction, as measured in surveys, are found from the very top (Colombia

Colombia

Colombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a country in north-western South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the north west by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean....
in 2nd place) to the very bottom (the USA in 150th place) of the rank order. The HPI is best conceived as a measure of the environmental efficiency of supporting well-being in a given country. Such efficiency could emerge in a country with a medium environmental impact (e.g. Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
) and very high well-being (e.g. Panama

Panama

Panama, officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America and, in turn, North America. Situated on an isthmus connecting North and South America, some categorize it as a transcontinental nation....
), but it could also emerge in a country with only mediocre well-being, but very low environmental impact (e.g. Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by People's Republic of China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east....
).

Each country’s HPI value is a function of its average subjective life satisfaction

Subjective life satisfaction

Subjective life satisfaction is a measure of an individual's perceived level of well-being and happiness.It is frequently assessed in surveys, by asking individuals how satisfied they are with their own lives....
, life expectancy

Life expectancy

Life expectancy is the average number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is the average expected lifespan of an individual. Life expectancy is heavily dependent on the criteria used to select the group....
at birth, and ecological footprint

Ecological footprint

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's Ecology capacity to regenerate....
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. Most of the life satisfaction data is taken from the World Values Survey

World Values Survey

The World Values Survey is an ongoing academic project by social scientists to assess the state of sociocultural, moral, religious and political values of different cultures around the world....
and World Database of Happiness, but some is drawn from other surveys, and some is estimated using statistical regression

Regression

Regression could refer to:* Regression , a defensive reaction to some unaccepted impulses* Past life regression, a process claiming to retrieve memories of previous lives...
techniques.

The best scoring country in 2006 is the island state of Vanuatu

Vanuatu

Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, north-east of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and south of the Solomon Islands, near New Zealand....
, followed by Colombia

Colombia

Costa Rica

Burundi

Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi, is a small country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the south and east, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west....
, Swaziland

Swaziland

The Kingdom of Swaziland is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south, and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique....
and Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe , is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo River rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east....
form the bottom of the list.

Views

Much criticism of the index has been due to commentators falsely understanding it to be a measure of happiness, when it is in fact a measure of the ecological efficiency of supporting well-being (see, for example, the following blogs in Heavy Lifting and Spiked

Spiked (magazine)

Spiked is a Great Britain online magazine focusing on politics, culture and society. The magazine?s mission statement is that they wish to ?make history? and to stand up for the principles of ?liberty, enlightenment, experimentation and excellence?....
).

Aside from that, criticism has focused on the following:

That the HPI completely ignores issues like political freedom, human rights and labor rights.
That the World Values Survey
World Values Survey

The World Values Survey is an ongoing academic project by social scientists to assess the state of sociocultural, moral, religious and political values of different cultures around the world....
covers only a minority of the world's nations and is only done every five years. As a result, much of the data for the index must come from other sources, or is estimated using regressions.
General suspicion of subjective measures of well-being.
That the Ecological Footprint
Ecological footprint

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's Ecology capacity to regenerate....
is a controversial concept with many criticisms.

Nevertheless, the HPI and its subcomponents have been considered in political circles. The Ecological Footprint, championed by the WWF

World Wide Fund for Nature

The World Wide Fund for Nature is an Internationalism non-governmental organization for the Conservation biology, Environmental science and Restoration ecology of the environment , formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in the United States and Canada....
, is widely used by both local and national governments, as well as supranational organisations such as the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Treaties of the European Union and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
. The HPI itself was recently cited in the British Conservative Party

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative and Unionist Party, more commonly known as the Conservative Party, is a conservative political party in the United Kingdom....
as a possible substitute for GDP, . A recent review of progress indicators produced by the European Parliament

European Parliament

The European Parliament is the only direct election parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union , it forms the bicameral Institutions of the European Union#Legislature of the Institutions of the European Union and has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world....
, lists the following pros and cons to using the HPI as a measure of national progress:

Pros:

Considers the actual ‘ends’ of economic activity in the form of life satisfaction and longevity
Combines wellbeing and environmental aspects
Simple and easily understandable scheme for calculating the index
Comparability of results (‘EF’ and ‘life expectancy’ can be applied to different countries)
Data online available, although some data gaps remain
Mixture of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ criteria; takes into account people’s well-being and resource use of countries

Cons:

‘Happiness’ or ‘life satisfaction’ are very subjective and personal: cultural influences and complex impact of policies on happiness
Confusion of name: index is not a measure of happiness but rather measure of environmental efficiency of supporting well-being in a given country

International Ranking

Rank	Country	HPI
1		68.21
2		67.24
3		66.00
4		64.55
5		63.54
6		61.86
7		61.75
8		61.69
9		61.66
10		61.37
11		61.31
12		61.23
13		61.08
14		60.98
15		60.31
16		59.23
17		59.17
18		59.09
19		59.05
20		58.93
21		58.92
22		57.92
23		57.90
24		57.90
25		57.66
26		57.55
27		57.14
28		56.65
29		56.14
30		56.07
31		55.99
32		55.39
33		55.14
34		55.03
35		55.00
36		54.47
37		54.43
38		54.39
39		53.52
40		53.26
41		53.20
42		52.92
43		52.73
44		52.69
45		52.64
46		52.41
47		52.20
48		52.04
49		51.96
50		51.87
51		51.32
52		51.13
53		51.01
54		49.95
55		49.65
56		49.59
57		49.31
58		49.29
59		49.22
60		48.96
61		48.77
62		48.67
63		48.59
64		48.35
65		48.30
66		48.26
67		47.23
68		46.98
69		46.17
70		46.00
71		45.99
72		45.99
73		45.89
74		45.62
75		44.90
76		44.75
77		44.55
78		44.04
79		44.03
80		43.94
81		43.83
82		43.71
83		43.64
84		43.41
85		43.34
86		43.23
87		43.04
88		42.88
89		42.65
90		42.46
91		42.15
92		42.13
93		42.05
94		41.92
95		41.70
96		41.59
97		41.58
98		41.40
99		41.40
100		41.16
101		41.15
102		41.11
103		40.96
104		40.81
105		40.69
106		40.52
107		40.33
108		40.29
109		40.26
110		40.10
111		39.76
112		39.40
113		39.38
114		39.29
115		39.18
116		39.14
117		39.07
118		38.41
119		38.17
120		37.72
121		37.64
122		37.42
123		37.36
124		37.30
125		36.92
126		36.86
127		36.70
128		36.59
129		36.42
130		36.15
131		36.14
132		35.81
133		35.71
134		35.08
135		35.08
136		34.83
137		34.49
138		34.35
139		34.06
140		33.68
141		33.01
142		32.76
143		32.72
144		32.53
145		31.59
146		31.14
147		31.12
148		30.08
149		29.29
150		28.83
151		28.80
152		28.35
153		28.24
154		28.20
155		27.88
156		27.80
157		27.74
158		27.68
159		27.67
160		27.27
161		26.80
162		26.66
163		25.91
164		25.90
165		25.78
166		25.50
167		25.42
168		25.37
169		23.96
170		23.77
171		23.05
172		22.76
173		22.68
174		22.21
175		20.69
176		19.02
177		18.38
178		16.64

Happy Planet Index

Outline

Views

International Ranking

See also

External links