Jul 17, 2007

European Happy Planet Index

Earlier in the year we looked at the Global Happy Planet Index and found that in general, Eastern European countries scored low on this measure, which takes into account life expectancy, life satisfaction and the carbon footprint of the country.

This week the latest figures were released for the European Happy Planet Index, with Iceland, Sweden and Norway taking out the top three places. Somewhat surprisingly, Estonia ranked last in 30th place, not far behind Hungary (26) and Bulgaria (28). Interestingly, out of the whole of Europe, Latvia is the one country that is considered to be living "fairly" in terms of a carbon footprint - it's a "relatively low-consumption country that has made extensive use of its renewable resources".

As for the rest of the Eastern European countries included in the study, their position on the European Happy Planet index looks like this:

8. Slovenia

11. Latvia

19. Poland

20. Romania

23. Slovakia

24. Czech Republic

25. Lithuania