For the 2012 ranking, 151 countries were compared, and the best scoring country for the second time in a row was Costa Rica, followed by Vietnam, Colombia, Belize and El Salvador. The lowest ranking countries in 2012 were Botswana, Chad and Qatar.
The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact that was introduced by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) in July 2006. The index is designed to challenge well-established indices of countries’ development, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI), which are seen as not taking sustainability into account. In particular, GDP is seen as inappropriate, as the usual ultimate aim of most people is not to be rich, but to be happy and healthy. Furthermore, it is believed that the notion of sustainable development requires a measure of the environmental costs of pursuing those goals.
How is the Happy Planet Index calculated?
The index uses global data on life expectancy, experienced well-being and Ecological Footprint.
Each of these components is based on a separate measure:
Experienced well-being.
If you want to know how well someone’s life is going, your best bet is to ask them directly. In this year’s HPI, experienced well-being is assessed using a question called the ‘Ladder of Life’ from the Gallup World Poll. This asks respondents to imagine a ladder, where 0 represents the worst possible life and 10 the best possible life, and report the step of the ladder they feel they currently stand on.
Life expectancy.
Alongside experienced well-being, the HPI includes a universally important measure of health – life expectancy. We used life expectancy data from the 2011 UNDP Human Development Report
Ecological Footprint.
The HPI uses the Ecological Footprint promoted by the environmental charity WWF as a measure of resource consumption. It is a per capita measure of the amount of land required to sustain a country’s consumption patterns, measured in terms of global hectares (g ha) which represent a hectare of land with average productive biocapacity.
2012 Happy Planet Index
| Rank | Country | HPI | Experienced well-being |
Life expectancy |
Ecological footprint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Costa Rica |
64.0 | 7.3 | 79.3 | 2.5 |
| 2 |  Vietnam |
60.4 | 5.8 | 75.2 | 1.4 |
| 3 |  Colombia |
59.8 | 6.4 | 73.7 | 1.8 |
| 4 |  Belize |
59.3 | 6.5 | 76.1 | 2.1 |
| 5 |  El Salvador |
58.9 | 6.7 | 72.2 | 2.0 |
| 6 |  Jamaica |
58.5 | 6.2 | 73.1 | 1.7 |
| 7 |  Panama |
57.8 | 7.3 | 76.1 | 3.0 |
| 8 |  Nicaragua |
57.1 | 5.7 | 74.0 | 1.6 |
| 9 |  Venezuela |
56.9 | 7.5 | 74.4 | 3.0 |
| 10 |  Guatemala |
56.9 | 6.3 | 71.2 | 1.8 |
| 11 |  Bangladesh |
56.3 | 5.0 | 68.9 | 0.7 |
| 12 |  Cuba |
56.2 | 5.4 | 79.1 | 1.9 |
| 13 |  Honduras |
56.0 | 5.9 | 73.1 | 1.7 |
| 14 |  Indonesia |
55.5 | 5.5 | 69.4 | 1.1 |
| 15 |  Israel |
55.2 | 7.4 | 81.6 | 4.0 |
| 16 |  Pakistan |
54.1 | 5.3 | 65.4 | 0.8 |
| 17 |  Argentina |
54.1 | 6.4 | 75.9 | 2.7 |
| 18 |  Albania |
54.1 | 5.3 | 76.9 | 1.8 |
| 19 |  Chile |
53.9 | 6.6 | 79.1 | 3.2 |
| 20 |  Thailand |
53.5 | 6.2 | 74.1 | 2.4 |
| 21 |  Mexico |
52.9 | 6.8 | 77.0 | 3.3 |
| 22 |  Brazil |
52.9 | 6.8 | 73.5 | 2.9 |
| 23 |  Ecuador |
52.5 | |||
| 24 |  Philippines |
52.4 | |||
| 25 |  Peru |
52.4 | |||
| 26 |  Algeria |
52.2 | |||
| 27 |  Jordan |
51.7 | |||
| 28 |  New Zealand |
51.6 | |||
| 29 |  Norway |
51.4 | |||
| 30 |  Palestine |
51.2 |
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