Welcome to the Earth.Org Global Sustainability Index, where Earth.Org examines the policies and actions regarding the environment of every nation on earth. Combining the most respected global indexes on pollution, climate change, policy, energy, oceans, biodiversity we have produced an overall Global Index, which will be updated annually. This is the Global Sustainability Index scorecard for Finland.
Finland’s low population density and stringent environmental protection standards enable it to achieve impressive sustainability targets. Their goals are extensive but practical – by setting multiple smaller scale targets for environmental protection, officials are able to measure success in real time and make adjustments as necessary, providing a flexible and adaptive program.
Finnish air is among the cleanest in the world, thanks in large part to stringent pollution regulations and the fact that 70% of the country is forest which acts as a carbon sink for the nation.
Energy and natural resource consumption in Finland is unsustainable, however, it has one of the highest proportion of energy consumption from renewable sources. Finalan has made considerable strides at reducing their energy and transitioning to cleaner sources, namely by transitioning away from private car use toward a public transit and pedestrian and biking culture.
Boasting a free education system, robust social services, high equality, and small income difference, Finland often tops global rankings for human and economic well being.
- 80% of Finland’s lakes are in good or excellent condition
- In 2021, Finland is set to launch Climate University, an open access university dedicated to educating people on climate change, sustainability,
- Finland is on track to becoming carbon neutral by 2050
- Finland’s capital, Helsinki, is set to become carbon neutral by 2035
* Our Energy ranking considers emission intensity (units of energy per unit of GDP). When one or both are low enough to make their influence negligible on a global scale, the country is left out of the ranking.
You might also like: Global Emissions (2016)
References:
-
Biodiversity, Policy: Sachs, J., Schmidt-Traub, G., Kroll, C., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G. (2019): Sustainable Development Report 2019. New York: Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
-
Oceans: Halpern, Benjamin S., et al. “An index to assess the health and benefits of the global ocean.” Nature 488.7413 (2012): 615-620.
-
Pollution: Wendling, Z. A., Emerson, J. W., Esty, D. C., Levy, M. A., de Sherbinin, A., et al. (2018). 2018 Environmental Performance Index. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. https://epi.yale.edu/
-
Climate Change: Climate Change Performance Index; Jan Burck, Ursula Hagen, Niklas Höhne, Leonardo Nascimento, Christoph Bals, ISBN 978-3-943704-75-4, 2019
-
Energy: Enerdata –World Energy Statistics – Yearbook.
World Energy Statistics
