Pilot Environmental
Sustainability Index
Presentation to ISPS Interdisciplinary
Faculty Discussion Seminar on the
Environment
Dan Esty, Yale
Marc Levy, Columbia
May 5, 2000
The Environmental Sustainability Index is the result of a
partnership involving:
• Global Leaders for Tomorrow Environment Task Force, World Economic
Forum (Kim Samuel-Johnson, Chair)
• Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy (YCELP), Yale University
(Dan Esty)
• Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN),
Columbia University (Marc Levy)
The report can be obtained at these web sites:
• http://www.ciesin.org/indicators/ESI/pilot_esi.html
• http://www.yale.edu/envirocenter/research/esi.html
• http://weforum.com/pdf/glt/glt_esi_2000.pdf
The Need for an
Environmental Sustainability
Index
• Counterpart to Competitiveness ndex
and other economic performance
measures
• Benchmark environmental performance
• Better goals, programs, and policies
• Clarify environment/economic tradeoffs
Pilot ESI Builds on Work of:
• OECD
• UN Commission on Sustainable
Development
• Consultative Group on Sustainable
Development Indicators
• Numerous other local, national, and
international efforts
Our Objectives
• Create an index that:
– Provides comparability across a wide range of
countries
– Focuses on environmental aspects of sustainability
– Expresses results as a single number per
economy, but permits more sophisticated
disaggregation and analysis
– Builds on an analytic foundation
– Serves as a working prototype meant to
encourage debate, dialogue, learning
Preliminary Results
Pilot Environmental Sustainability Index (v. 1.1)
Norway
Finland
Switzerland
Iceland
Sweden
Denmark
Canada
New Zealand
Australia
Netherlands
Ireland
Japan
France
United States
Austria
Slovak Rep
United Kingdom
Germany
Argentina
Belgium
Uruguay
Portugal
Spain
Israel
Russian Federation
Lithuania, Rep
Hungary
Brazil
Paraguay
Poland, Rep
Chile
Italy
Venezuela
Ecuador
Costa Rica
Bolivia
Botswana
Cuba
Czech Rep
M ongolia
Greece
Colombia
Ukraine
Nepal
M alaysia
Korea, Rep
Thailand
M exico
Indonesia
Philippines
Jordan
India
M orocco
South Africa
Gabon
Romania
Ghana
China
M ali
Bulgaria
El Salvador
Egypt
Turkey
Guatemala
Zimbabwe
Algeria
Tunisia
Nicaragua
Pakistan
M auritius
Peru
Cameroon
Sri Lanka
Kenya
M oldova, Rep
Senegal
Zambia
Honduras
Singapore
Iran, Islamic Rep
Vietnam
Bangladesh
M alawi
Nigeria
Tanzania
M adagascar
Uganda
Top quintile
2nd quintile
3rd quintile
4th quintile
5th quintile
•Australia
•Argentina
•Botswana
•Algeria
•Bangladesh
•Austria
•Belgium
•Colombia
•Bulgaria
•Cameroon
•Canada
•Bolivia
•Cuba
•China
•Honduras
•Denmark
•Brazil
•Czech Rep
•Egypt
•Iran
•Finland
•Chile
•Greece
•El Salvador
•Kenya
•France
•Costa Rica
•India
•Gabon
•Madagascar
•Germany
•Ecuador
•Indonesia
•Ghana
•Malawi
•Iceland
•Hungary
•Jordan
•Guatemala
•Moldova
•Ireland
•Israel
•Korea, Rep
•Mali
•Nigeria
•Japan
•Italy
•Malaysia
•Mauritius
•Peru
•Netherlands
•Lithuania, Rep
•Mexico
•Nicaragua
•Senegal
•New Zealand
•Paraguay
•Mongolia
•Pakistan
•Singapore
•Norway
•Poland, Rep
•Morocco
•Romania
•Sri Lanka
•Slovak Rep
•Portugal
•Nepal
•South Africa
•Tanzania
•Sweden
•Russian Federation
•Philippines
•Tunisia
•Uganda
•Switzerland
•Spain
•Thailand
•Turkey
•Vietnam
•United Kingdom
•Uruguay
•Ukraine
•Zimbabwe
•Zambia
•United States
•Venezuela
0
20
40
60
80
100
High numbers correspond to greater
levels of environmental sustainability
Analytical
Foundations
Environmental
Systems
•
•
•
•
•
Urban Air Quality
Water Quantity
Water Quality
Biodiversity
Land
Social and
Institutional
Capacity
Human
Vulnerability
• Basic Sustenance
• Public Health
• Environmental
Disasters
Environmental
Stresses
•
•
•
•
•
• Science/Technical
Capacity
• Rigorous Policy Debate
• Environmental
Regulation and
Management
• Tracking Environmental
Conditions
• Eco-efficiency
• Public Choice Failures
Air Pollution
Water Pollution/Use
Ecosystem Stress
Waste/Consumption
Population
Global
Stewardship
• Contribution to
International
Cooperation
• Impact on Global
Commons
Empirical Inputs
• For each factor, we identified 1-6
variables to serve as quantitative
measures (65 total)
• For this pilot, we weighted the factors
equally in computing the Index
65
variables
21
factors
5
components
Index
Example: Social and Institutional Capacity
Austria
Brazil
Costa Rica
Egypt
France
Malaysia
Portugal
Switzerland
Turkey
Ukraine
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Scientific and Technical Capacity
Capacity for Rigorous Public Debate
Environmental Regulation and Management
Tracking Environmental Conditions
Eco-efficiency
Avoiding Public Choice Failures
80
Example: Social and Institutional Capacity
Switzerland
Austria
France
Portugal
Costa Rica
Brazil
Turkey
Malaysia
Egypt
Ukraine
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Scientific and Technical Capacity
Capacity for Rigorous Public Debate
Environmental Regulation and Management
Tracking Environmental Conditions
Eco-efficiency
Avoiding Public Choice Failures
80
Example: Social and Institutional Capacity
Figure 9. Social and Institutional Capacity Component
Swit zerland
Net herlands
Sweden
Finland
Denmark
Norway
Aust ria
Unit ed Kingdom
Germany
Israel
Iceland
New Zealand
France
Aust ralia
Canada
Japan
Unit ed St at es
Belgium
Port ugal
Ireland
Singapore
Spain
Korea
It aly
Cost a Rica
Chile
Maurit ius
Argent ina
Sout h Af rica
Slovak Republic
Brazil
Thailand
Jordan
El Salvador
Hungary
Poland
Turkey
Czech Republic
Ecuador
Peru
Zimbabwe
Greece
Malaysia
Philippines
India
Mexico
Indonesia
Bolivia
Egypt
Venezuela
Russia
China
Bulgaria
Colombia
Ukraine
Viet nam
Scientific and Technical Capacity
Capacity for Rigorous Public Debate
Environmental Regulation and
Management
Tracking Environmental Conditions
Eco-efficiency
Avoiding Public Choice Failures
0
20
40
60
Longer bar s denot e gr eat er l evel s of capaci t y
80
100
Putting the Index to Use:
Assessing Environment/Economic Tradeoffs
As
hypothesized
Environmental
by Michael
sustainability
Porter,
there
does
not appear
be aa
tomay
impose
connection
constraint
on
between
good
economic
economic
growth
performance
and good
environmental
performance
Relationship between Environmental Sustainability and
Relationship between Environmental Sustainability
Economic Growth, 1993-1998
80
80
and Economic Competitiveness
70
70
60
60
50
50
40
40
-15
-3
-2 -10
-1
-5
0
0
1
GDP
Rate, 1993-1998
WEF Growth
Competitiveness
Index
52
310
Among Similar Economies the
Importance of Choice is Clear
How vigorously to
pursue environmental
sustainability, and
how vigorously to
pursue economic
growth, appear to be
two separate choices
Why does this matter?
Four perspectives on the relationship between
economic performance and environmental
sustainability
Environment
Difficult
tradeoffs –
policy dilemmas
Environmental
Kuznets: just be
patient
Economics
Good things go together –
policy “free lunch”
All combinations are possible –
importance of responsible
policy choices
Good
indicators
are vital
Conclusions
(Does the world really need another
environmental indicator?)
• Measuring environmental sustainability is
possible and useful
– This is a surprising, and encouraging, result
• Some aspects appear to be easier to
quantify than others
– Some surprises here (capacity v. stress)
• A future ESI can improve on the Pilot
Conclusions
– Investment in data creation
• Most global environmental monitoring programs are
based on 19th century models – time to move forward
– Pluralistic, distributed networks (no central bottlenecks)
– Greater use of civil society
– Remote sensing and other advanced technologies
– More sophisticated methods to weight factors and
test validity, understand underlying assumptions
and values
• Factor analysis, time series analysis, regression analysis
– Interactive, open version
• Permit users to change factors and variables, change
weights, add new variables
– Scalable version
• Permit users to integrate global, national, regional and
local indicators as appropriate to their needs
Project Status
• Pilot
– Pilot Index presented in Davos 1-31-00
– Detailed peer-reviewed critiques prepared February-April,
2000
– Presentations to various policy and academic fora
– Detailed review within several organizations and
governments
• 2001 Index
– Reviewing results of peer reviews and other commentary
– Planning refinements in methods, improvements in data,
expansion of country coverage.
– Considering devoting special effort to a particular sector
(e.g. water)
– To be released January 2001
Payoff
– Strengthen quality of scholarly debates and
research programs
– Enhance assessment of national
environmental performance – greater
accountability
– Improve formulation of policy targets and
priorities (identifying critical weaknesses)