The Happy Planet Index

The Happy Planet Index is quickly becoming one of the world’s go-to indexes when it comes to measuring the stability and performance of the Earth’s nation states. Eschewing the antiquated notion that measuring a nation’s GDP is the best indicator of their overall well being, the HPI calculates direct feedback from a nation’s population, along with the ecological footprint the nation has and their average life expectancy. The HPI is unique in that it takes the overall environmental sustainability of a nation into account.

The creator of the HPI said in a press release,

“The Happy Planet Index measures what really matters – long and happy lives now and the potential for good lives in the future. For too long we have relied on incomplete measures of progress that focus only on economic activity, such as GDP.”

So where do the world’s nations rank on the Happy Planet Index? Costa Rica ranks number one with an overall HPI score of 64.1. The least happy country in 2014 was Botswana. Despite having a low ecological footprint, the devastatingly low life expectancy of 53.2 years and very negative feedback from those who live there result in the country only receiving a 22.6 HPI score.

With a HPI score of 37.3, The United States of America comes in 105^th place, due to a blood red colored ecological footprint score of 7.2 (the higher the score, the worse a country’s performance). Looks like the United States has some catching up to do with Costa Rica.

An interesting map from MoveHub reveals how happy people are around the world.