The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a method of quantifying and numerically marking the environmental performance of a state's policies, highlighting the degradation of the planet's life-supporting systems on which humanity depends. A world economy that continues to rely heavily on fossil fuels translates into ongoing air and water pollution, acidification of the oceans, and rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These changes threaten the survival of species already suffering from widespread habitat loss, pushing them closer to extinction. Recent analyses show that humanity has already transgressed six out of nine critical planetary boundaries that define Earth's safe operating space — and is close to crossing a seventh.
The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) was started in 2002 by World Economic Forum in association with the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (Yale University) and Center for International Earth Science Information Network Earth Institute (Columbia University). The biennial EPI report harnesses the latest data sets, science, and technology to provide the most comprehensive assessment of the state of sustainability around the world. In total, the 2024 EPI report incorporates 58 indicators to rank 180 countries on their progress at mitigating climate change, safeguarding ecosystem vitality, and promoting environmental health. This broad set of metrics is a powerful tool to track progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the climate mitigation targets in the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement, and the biodiversity protection goals in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
In 2023, the first global assessment of progress toward the goals of the Paris Agreement revealed a grim picture: the world is far off track. Despite record deployment of renewable energy, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions keep rising. As the world enters uncharted climatic territory, there is a heightened risk of crossing irreversible tipping points in the planet's climate system.
Methodology
Over time, the methodology for the EPI has been criticized for its arbitrary choice of metrics which could introduce bias, and its poor performance as an indicator for environmental sustainability. Additional criticisms center on the EPI's lack of specific policy suggestions, and the index's weighting biases against data deficient countries that has led to the overlooking of ecological progress in developing countries.
In 2024, India was ranked at 176 in the list and rejected the low ranking. As per a statement issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), it claimed that several indicators used in the calculation were based on unfounded assumptions and unscientific methods.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe found 3 Pros: EPI provides an easily comparable index; EPI's ecosystem vitality scores are based on six constituent policy categories: water resources, agriculture, forests, fisheries, biodiversity and habitat, and climate and energy; the referenced database yields maps for each of EPI's partial indices (normalised ) and 3 Cons: CIESIN's EPI rather is an attempt to quantitatively represent the ecological performance of countries and companies; actual reasons for dysfunctionalities might need further research; EPI would be a more policy-relevant index.
As a result of these criticisms, the number of EPI indicators has increased, and their weight has changed, to provide a better data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world. The 2024 index is based on 58 performance indicators grouped into 30 issue categories with an objective of environmental health, ecosystem vitality and climate change, ranking 180 countries.
+ 2024 EPI indicators and weights (%) Policy Objective Wt. (%) Issue Category Wt. (%) Indicator Wt. (%) Ecosystem Vitality 45% Biodiversity & Habitat 25 Marine KBA Protection 12.0 Marine Habitat Protection 12.0 Marine Protection Stringency 2.0 Protected Areas Representativeness Index 12.0 Species Protection Index 16.0 Terrestrial Biome Protection 10.0 Terrestrial KBA Protection 10.0 Protected Area Effectiveness 2.0 Protected Human Land 2.0 Red List Index 12.0 Species Habitat Index 8.0 Bioclimatic Ecosystem Resilience 2.0 Forests 5 Primary Forest Loss 30.0 Intact Forest Landscape Loss 30.0 Tree cover loss weighted by permanency 25.0 Net change in tree cover 10.0 Forest Landscape Integrity 5.0 Fisheries 2 Fish Stock Status 15.0 Fish Catch Discarded 20.0 Bottom Trawling in EEZ 25.0 Bottom Trawling in Global Ocean 35.0 Regional Marine Trophic Index 5.0 Air Pollution 6 Ozone exposure KBAs 8.3 Ozone exposure croplands 8.3 Adj. emissions growth rate for nitrous oxides 41.7 Adj. emissions growth rate for sulfur dioxide 41.7 Agriculture 3 Sustainable Nitrogen Management Index 40.0 Phosphorus Surplus 3.3 Pesticide Pollution Risk 16.7 Relative Crop Yield 40.0 Water Resources 5 Wastewater generated 10.0 Wastewater collected 40.0 Wastewater treated 40.0 Wastewater reused 10.0 Environmental Health 25% Air Quality 17 Anthropogenic PM2.5 exposure 38.2 Household solid fuels 38.2 Ozone exposure 8.8 NOx exposure 5.9 SO2 exposure 2.9 CO exposure 2.9 VOC exposure 2.9 Sanitation & Drinking Water 5 Unsafe sanitation 40.0 Unsafe drinking water 60.0 Heavy Metals 2 Lead exposure 100.0 Waste Management 1 Waste generated per capita 40.0 Controlled solid waste 20.0 Waste recovery rate 40.0 Climate Change 30% Climate Change Mitigation 30 Adjusted emissions growth rate for carbon dioxide 25.0 CO2 growth rate (country- specific targets) 1.7 Adjusted emissions growth rate for methane 10.0 Adjusted emissions growth rate for F-gases 6.7 Adjusted emissions growth rate for nitrous oxide 3.3 Adjusted emissions growth rate for black carbon 5.0 Net carbon fluxes due to land cover change 3.3 GHG growth rate adjusted by emissions intensity 20.0 GHG growth rate adjusted by per capita emissions 20.0 Projected emissions in 2050 3.3 Projected cumulative emissions to 2050 relative to carbon budget 1.7 Note: Wt. (%) is percent weights of overall EPI. Weights are rounded and may not add up to 100%.
List of countries by 2024 EPI scores
The 2024 Environmental Performance Index report ranks 180 countries and territories, based on 58 performance indicators grouped into 11 issue categories. The top five countries are Estonia, Luxembourg, Germany, Finland and the United Kingdom, while the last ones are India, Myanmar, Laos, Pakistan and Vietnam. Sorting is alphabetical by country code, according to ISO 3166-1 alpha-3.
+ Country Region Value Trend Rank 2024 South Asia 144 Sub-Saharan Africa 106 Europe & Central Asia 47 Middle East & North Africa 48 Latin America & Caribbean 70 Europe & Central Asia 80 Latin America & Caribbean 37 East Asia & Pacific 22 Europe & Central Asia 8 Europe & Central Asia 103 Sub-Saharan Africa 138 Europe & Central Asia 14 Sub-Saharan Africa 119 Sub-Saharan Africa 95 South Asia 148 Europe & Central Asia 35 Middle East & North Africa 131 Latin America & Caribbean 36 Europe & Central Asia 75 Europe & Central Asia 31 Latin America & Caribbean 67 Latin America & Caribbean 78 Latin America & Caribbean 44 Latin America & Caribbean 43 East Asia & Pacific 62 South Asia 89 Sub-Saharan Africa 59 Sub-Saharan Africa 111 North America 27 Europe & Central Asia 9 Latin America & Caribbean 57 East Asia & Pacific 130 Sub-Saharan Africa 90 Sub-Saharan Africa 114 Sub-Saharan Africa 109 Sub-Saharan Africa 99 Latin America & Caribbean 56 Sub-Saharan Africa 115 Sub-Saharan Africa 117 Latin America & Caribbean 38 Latin America & Caribbean 46 Europe & Central Asia 41 Europe & Central Asia 16 Europe & Central Asia 3 Middle East & North Africa 141 Latin America & Caribbean 58 Europe & Central Asia 10 Latin America & Caribbean 66 Middle East & North Africa 98 Latin America & Caribbean 49 Middle East & North Africa 87 Sub-Saharan Africa 147 Europe & Central Asia 21 Europe & Central Asia 1 Sub-Saharan Africa 125 Europe & Central Asia 4 East Asia & Pacific 75 Europe & Central Asia 12 East Asia & Pacific 101 Sub-Saharan Africa 42 Europe & Central Asia 5 Europe & Central Asia 68 Sub-Saharan Africa 122 Sub-Saharan Africa 123 Sub-Saharan Africa 120 Sub-Saharan Africa 96 Sub-Saharan Africa 98 Europe & Central Asia 11 Latin America & Caribbean 76 Latin America & Caribbean 140 Latin America & Caribbean 60 Latin America & Caribbean 105 Europe & Central Asia 24 Latin America & Caribbean 124 Europe & Central Asia 30 East Asia & Pacific 137 South Asia 149 Europe & Central Asia 15 Middle East & North Africa 97 Middle East & North Africa 145 Europe & Central Asia 18 Middle East & North Africa 63 Europe & Central Asia 28 Latin America & Caribbean 61 Middle East & North Africa 68 East Asia & Pacific 26 Europe & Central Asia 65 Sub-Saharan Africa 122 Europe & Central Asia 91 East Asia & Pacific 143 East Asia & Pacific 82 East Asia & Pacific 51 Middle East & North Africa 81 East Asia & Pacific 151 Middle East & North Africa 108 Sub-Saharan Africa 135 Latin America & Caribbean 50 South Asia 112 Sub-Saharan Africa 122 Europe & Central Asia 20 Europe & Central Asia 2 Europe & Central Asia 29 Middle East & North Africa 109 Europe & Central Asia 74 Sub-Saharan Africa 146 South Asia 116 Latin America & Caribbean 83 East Asia & Pacific 94 Europe & Central Asia 52 Sub-Saharan Africa 134 Middle East & North Africa 13 East Asia & Pacific 150 Europe & Central Asia 66 East Asia & Pacific 121 Sub-Saharan Africa 111 Sub-Saharan Africa 133 Sub-Saharan Africa 68 Sub-Saharan Africa 132 East Asia & Pacific 100 Sub-Saharan Africa 85 Sub-Saharan Africa 107 Sub-Saharan Africa 118 Latin America & Caribbean 67 Europe & Central Asia 13 Europe & Central Asia 7 South Asia 139 East Asia & Pacific 32 Middle East & North Africa 49 South Asia 152 Latin America & Caribbean 45 Latin America & Caribbean 73 East Asia & Pacific 142 East Asia & Pacific 122 Europe & Central Asia 19 Europe & Central Asia 25 Latin America & Caribbean 109 Middle East & North Africa 71 Europe & Central Asia 32 Europe & Central Asia 72 Sub-Saharan Africa 136 Middle East & North Africa 94 Sub-Saharan Africa 110 Sub-Saharan Africa 86 East Asia & Pacific 44 East Asia & Pacific 95 Sub-Saharan Africa 108 Latin America & Caribbean 99 Europe & Central Asia 55 Sub-Saharan Africa 126 Latin America & Caribbean 34 Europe & Central Asia 17 Europe & Central Asia 23 Europe & Central Asia 6 Sub-Saharan Africa 113 Sub-Saharan Africa 64 Sub-Saharan Africa 127 Sub-Saharan Africa 129 East Asia & Pacific 77 Europe & Central Asia 141 Europe & Central Asia 102 East Asia & Pacific 54 East Asia & Pacific 104 Latin America & Caribbean 46 Middle East & North Africa 78 East Asia & Pacific 53 Sub-Saharan Africa 88 Sub-Saharan Africa 128 Europe & Central Asia 39 Latin America & Caribbean 84 North America 33 Europe & Central Asia 93 Latin America & Caribbean 40 Latin America & Caribbean 42 East Asia & Pacific 153 East Asia & Pacific 79 East Asia & Pacific 69 Sub-Saharan Africa 92 Sub-Saharan Africa 72 Sub-Saharan Africa 48
EPI scores vs. GDP per capita, 2024