Happy Planet?

Here's something worth a look. Some great work being done by new economics foundation in London on well-being and the development of a 'happy planet index' which balances human and planetary well-being. The map below shows Latin America to have the highest score while countries in Africa, the US and Russia score poorly.

The HPI incorporates three separate indicators: ecological footprint, life-satisfaction and life expectancy. The statistical calculations that underlie the HPI are quite complex. However conceptually, it is straight forward and intuitive:

HPI =	Life satisfaction x Life expectancy
	Ecological Footprint

The HPI reflects the average years of happy life produced by a given society, nation or group of nations, per unit of planetary resources consumed. Put another way, it represents the efficiency with which countries convert the earth’s finite resources into well-being experienced by their citizens.

While this is a great initiative, I can see some potential shortfalls to this approach. We know for a start that Ecological Footprint is not a true or full measure of sustainability. By using the 4 TNS sustainability principles we identify that EF deals mainly with the need to 'dematerialize' our resource consumption but does not give us any guidance on the need for 'substitutions' eg switching to naturally abundant minerals instead of toxic / scarce ones.

Secondly, looking at the countries that do well in the HPI you can see ones that are war-torn or not generally considered safe. Perhaps combining this index with an assessment of whether people feel their needs are being met might be useful. These are just ideas since have only briefly looked into the workings of HPI...