A collaboration among the World Economic Forum's Global Leaders for Tomorrow Environment Task Force, The Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) "is a measure of overall progress towards environmental sustainability, developed for 122 countries." The ESI is based on 22 core "indicators," each of which combines two to six variables for a total of 67 underlying variables. The idea is to create cross-national comparisons of environmental progress as part of an effort to foster a more analytically driven approach to environmental decision-making. The top-ranked nations were Finland, Norway, and Canada, with the US coming in at number eleven and the UK placing sixteenth. Visitors can view the rankings and download the full text of the 225-page report and a Powerpoint Presentation at the site. A spreadsheet of the ESI is promised for the near future.
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