the happy planet index europe 2007

8/9/2019 The Happy Planet Index Europe 2007

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Well-being

The european happy planeT Index

An index o carbon efciency and well-being in the EU


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is an independent think-and-dotank that inspires and demonstratesreal economic well-being.

We aim to improve quality o lie bypromoting innovative solutions thatchallenge mainstream thinking on

economic, environmental and socialissues. We work in partnership andput people and the planet rst.

(the new economics oundation) is a registered charity ounded in 1986 by the leaders o The Other Economic Summit (TOES),which orced issues such as international debt onto the agenda o the G7/G8 summit meetings. It has taken a lead in helping establishnew coalitions and organisations such as the Jubilee 2000 debt campaign; the Ethical Trading Initiative; the UK Social InvestmentForum; and new ways to measure social and economic well-being.


3/47The European (un)Happy Planet Index 1

exctiv smm 2

The Happy Planet Index 2

Time trends 3

Where do we go rom here? 4

Itcti: a w mtic bm 6

usstib csmti 7

Are we ecient? 7

G ivs tt t cst t et visi e? 9

Two agendas: Lisbon and Gothenburg 9

Cooperation or confict? 10

hw is e ig? 11

HPI as a measure o eciency 11

Human well-being 11

Planetary resource use 15

Putting it all together: HPI 16

Winners and losers 18

Tim ts 22What is optimal eciency? 22

Late developers 23

Close up on the UK 23

Gains and losses 24

eg i e 25

Cutting the carbon 25

Distribution 26

Making the most o what youve got 27

livig i, ivig igt 28

Consumption inequality 29

Social actors 29

Personal consumption 29

Psychological hurdles 30 and how to jump them 31

Three steps to a more ecient Europe 31

Ccsis 33

Forwards, not backwards 33

aix 1: Wt is e? 34

aix 2: dt scs cctig hpI 35

ets 39

T ct w-big t 44

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Well-being

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s Happy Planet Index (HPI) is a

measure o the ecological eciency with

which human well-being is delivered.

In an age o climate change, it gives

a better picture o the true health and

wealth o nations. Using new data this

report reveals that Europe is less carbonecient now than it was 40 years ago at

delivering human well-being in terms o

relatively happy, long lives to its citizens.

The Index explores why some European

countries produce well-being at a much

higher cost than others. Strikingly, the

research reveals that people are just as

likely to lead satised lives whether theirlevels o consumption are very low or

high. This means there is huge potential

to reduce environmentally damaging

consumption, and that good lives dont

have to cost the earth.



Progress since has been shaped by the tension between Europes aspirationtoward the bigger, aster and more economic approach characterised byMansholt, and its desire to be a good partner or international development and anenvironmentally responsible global citizen.

Yet today, in an age o climate change, Europe is less carbon ecient at deliveringhuman well-being in terms o relatively happy, long lives to its citizens than it wasover 40 years ago. New research in this report shows, however, that people withvery low levels o consumption are just as likely to live satised lives, as people withvery high levels o consumption.

In2006, (the new economics oundation) introduced a new metric ointernational development, the Happy Planet Index(HPI), which demonstratedthe ecological eciency with which human well-being is delivered.1 Europe wasrevealed to be less ecient than many regions o the world, including Latin Americaand the Caribbean, much o Asia, the Middle East and North Arica.

Global warming now means it is more important than ever that we use ourresources eciently. However, since around 1986 globally we have beenconsuming more o the planets resources than can be replenished through theregenerative capacity o the biosphere. Given that the EU 272 contains around 7per cent o the worlds population and yet accounts or a disproportionate 16 percent o total planetary resource consumption, we need to ask whether current levels

o consumption in Europe can be justied by the benets that are achieved. Thepresent report uses HPI methodology to take a closer look at this question.

T ()h pt Ix

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Well-being is a combination o subjective and objective actors. The HPI uses liesatisaction how satised people eelwith their lives overall combined with lieexpectancy at birth. This component o the HPI or Europe reveals that:

P Citizens o Northern European countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Icelandtend to report highest levels o subjective lie satisaction, as do the Swiss.

PThese countries have similarly high lie expectancy, although they are joined inthis by some o the Mediterranean countries, such as Italy and Spain.

P The transition countries, such as Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, and Romania, havethe lowest well-being in Europe, with lower lie expectancy and low lie satisaction.

exctiv smm

In 1972, Sicco Mansholt, then President o the European Commission,raised a series o provocative questions that are still resonant today:

Will the EEC become a powerul agent or improving living

standards and opportunity in solidarity with less ortunate

countries? Or will it remain a select inward-looking club

o some o the worlds richest nations? Will it continue to

produce bigger, aster and more or some to the detriment o

the global environment and the welare o the rest?



P The UK comes a disappointing 15th out o 30 in rank orders or both liesatisaction and lie expectancy. Contrasted with nations such as France andGermany, to whom we are traditionally compared, this puts the UK just aheadin terms o lie satisaction, with Germany 16th and France 19th. But the UKalls behind on lie expectancy the average person born in France today canexpect to live just over 79 years, almost a year longer than the average personborn in the UK.

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But well-being is only hal o the story. HPI does not ask which nation is thehappiest, but which uses the earths resources most eciently? To assess this, weneed to consider the amount o planetary resources required by each nation tosupport the liestyles o its citizens: this is measured by carbon ootprint. Here, aninteresting and less obvious picture begins to emerge.

P The UK has the ourth largest carbon ootprint per person in Europe, behind onlyLuxembourg, Estonia and Finland.

P Overall, only one country is living within its air share: Latvia, a relatively low-consumption country that has made extensive use o its renewable resources.The rest o Europe, overall, is responsible or almost three times its air share ocarbon emissions.

P Luxembourg has by ar the heaviest carbon ootprint per person in Europe. Soheavy in act that it wouldnt t on our scale. However, it is not simply the casethat the wealthiest nations are the worst culprits. Scandinavian nations havesome o the lowest per capita carbon ootprints, while Estonia and Greece haveamong the highest.

P Meanwhile, the Scandinavian nations have some o the lowest per capita carbonootprints in Europe, despite also being amongst the richest nations. Iceland,in particular, does well with the second smallest per capita ootprint in Europe.Some o the dierences can be explained by access to domestically availablerenewable energy sources, but not all. For example, Germany has the ourteenthlargest carbon ootprint and France the sixteenth. Even wealthy, high consuming

Switzerland has only the ninth largest.

T e ()h pt Ix

Combining well-being and ootprint together, a picture o relative carbon eciencyacross Europe emerges, with bad news or the UK.

P The UK comes a poor 21st in our Index o 30 countries, behind France andGermany, with only the transition countries, Portugal, Greece, and Luxembourgdoing worse.

P Iceland comes top o the European HPI. Scandinavian countries are the mostecient achieving the highest levels o well-being in Europe at relatively low

environmental cost with Sweden and Norway joining Iceland at the top o theHPI table.

P The transition nations come toward the bottom o the table. However, even herethere are clear lessons to be learned rom their dierent experiences. Estoniaand Latvia, both lauded as Baltic Tigers, are barely separated in terms o lieexpectancy and lie satisaction. But Estonias huge per capita carbon ootprint,combined with high income inequality and declining social cohesion, marks itout as the least ecient country in Europe in terms o well-being delivered perunit o resource consumption. Latvia meanwhile comes a respectable eleventh.

Tim ts

This snapshot shows how Europe is aring now. But how did it get here? Examining

trends in well-being and ootprint over the last our decades reveals a depressingpicture. Modest improvements to well-being, mainly driven by increased lieexpectancy, can be observed over this period, although relative to the rest o theWorld quality o lie in Europe was already good in the 1960s. But over the sametime period per capita carbon ootprints have risen by as much as 75 per cent. In



other words, marginal gains in well-being have been bought at an unsustainablyhigh environmental price the eciency o delivering well-being has actually allenby around 10 per cent when it should have been rising.

W w g m ?

In Europe, reducing our collective carbon ootprint is one o our greatest challenges.But this does not mean turning the clock back. We have to negotiate the hugechanges required without undermining our quality o lie. To do this, we need tolook to the example o those European countries that are already the most ecient some o the most socially progressive and technologically advanced nations

anywhere in the world. Notably, it is the countries that have most closely ollowedthe Anglo-Saxon, strongly market-led economic model who in general perormworst.

New data rom , presented in this report, show that there is scope to do evenbetter. These data do not support an unappealing choice between businessas usual at the expense o the planet and uture generations, or compromisedwell-being to minimise environmental degradation. In act, they suggest that ourwell-being has little to do with our level o resource consumption, which allowsor the possibility that ootprint could be reduced signicantly without leading towidespread loss in well-being.

Europe is committed to reducing its carbon ootprint to a small enough sizethat it will meet an EU target o halting global warming to no more than twodegrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. According to Sir Nicholas Stern,author o the Treasury commissioned report on the economic eects o climatechange, this means cuts in emissions by industrialised nations compared to1990 levels o between 70 and 80 per cent by 2050. Compared to this, EUreduction targets o eight per cent by 2012 set out in the Kyoto protocol appearwoeully inadequate. On current perormance, most o Europe is not remotelyclose to navigating a path that will produce the scale o cuts in emissionsneeded to meet this target, let alone the level o cuts that Sir Nicolas Sternbelieves necessary. Innovative policies will need to be developed thatsignicantly reduce per capita carbon ootprints whilst respecting (and, ideally,enhancing) well-being.

Achieving this goal will require comprehensive action. Detailed proposals can beound elsewhere, both in our and others materials, that spell out how to reduceconsumption o carbon and other resources, and how to design policy to reduceinequality and increase well-being. These include, or example, s own Well-Being Maniesto or a fourishing society3 and Friends o the Earths proposedlegislation to mandate year-on-year national reductions in emissions. But the keytargets or policy-makers can be summarised as:

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General over-consumption is at the heart o the problem and the people o

Europe need to shit to liestyles that require less resources to be consumed.Energy is an area where decisive government action can make a real dierence.Countries like the UK need to decentralise their energy production and makear better use o their abundant renewable energy resources. Every Europeangovernment needs to set legally binding targets or reducing carbon dioxideemissions, setting carbon budgets or 35 year periods, to ensure each countrydoes its part in keeping global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius.

P rcig iqitis

Inequalities not just o income, but also o education, health and socialopportunity have a damaging impact on well-being. They deplete thesocial cohesion and social capital required to develop shared solutions to ourenvironmental problems. They help drive the materialistic aspirations o over-consumption. Governments should aim to halt and reverse rises in inequality,and provide more support or local communities to thrive.



P St mig ivs

Governments should take notice o the emerging science o well-being and itsimplications or policy. For example, employers should be encouraged to enabletheir employees to develop ull lives outside the workplace, be fexible and maketime or them to undertake voluntary work. It is time that European governmentsinvested in and implemented national well-being accounts to inorm policymaking across government, ensuring that the impact o policy decisions onpeoples well-being is taken into account.

In summary, individuals, communities, governments and societies at large can

aord to greatly reduce their levels o consumption without it needing to underminethe well-being o the citizens o Europe. The impacts o global warming, both withinthe EU and around the world, means that we can no longer justiy the marginalbenets reaped rom our current inecient levels o resource consumption. Theprice paid by uture generations and people alive today in poorer countries withewer resources to adapt is simply too great.

Europe needs urgently to nd a new development path where good lives dont costthe earth.



There is massive disparity in the quantity o planetary resources consumed per heado population in dierent countries. According to the orthodox model o development,higher levels o consumption are the route to a better quality o lie. Yet, because weonly have one planet, resources are sustainable only i the rate o consumption isless than the rate at which they can be replenished or repaired. Many o the earthsresources that have a slow rate o repair are, in eect, nite. The widespread callor sustainable development amounts to a recognition that the current model odevelopment is unsustainable. We are already using the planets resources aster than

they can be replaced.

How can the pursuit o good lives, on the one hand, and the need to live within the limitso sustainability, on the other, be weighed against one another? Is it necessarily the casethat a good lie or all leads inexorably to unsustainability, or is there another way?

In July 2006, introduced the (un)Happy Planet Indexto provide a means o comparingthe progress o nations toward the goal o delivering high levels o well-being within theconstraints o equitable and responsible resource consumption. Independently, at aroundthe same time, the IUCN (The World Conservation Union) called or a metric capable omeasuring the production o human well-being (not necessarily material goods) per unito extraction rom or imposition upon nature.4 HPI does just that.

The rst HPI report covered 178 countries o the world.5 This report demonstrated clearlynot only the huge disparity that exists between countries in terms o their resource use,but also the surprisingly smallincreases in experienced well-being that have beengained by the wealthiest countries despite their spiralling rates o consumption. It alsoshowed that some countries achieve Western standards o well-being at a raction othe ecological cost.

As the EU struggles towards dening a coherent, uniting vision or the European project,this report presents a special regional version o the infuential HPI. The rst reportshowed how well the continent o Europe delivers happy and long lives or its citizensas a unction o resource consumption, relative to other regions o the world (Table 1). Inthis report we ocus within Europe. We explore why some countries produce well-being

at a much higher cost than others, why the carbon eciency o delivering well-being hasbeen declining and not increasing, and we consider the steps that must be taken i thenations o Europe are to achieve good lives or their citizens that dont cost the Earth.

Itcti: a w mtic bm

People across the world strive towards the same ultimate goal:living a good lie. Dierent cultures pursue this goal in myriad ways.However, they share one inescapable characteristic, namely a

reliance on the resources o the planet to support their activities.

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The Earth supports some 6.5 billion people and planetary resources are increasinglyconstrained. One way o illustrating this is to estimate the total biocapacity o the world (theamount o biologically productive land area) and compare this with the actual amount oresources consumed. Biocapacity has been rising gradually as improvements in technologylead to better yield per unit o land in some sectors. But this modest increase is swamped

by the increase in demand. According to calculations by the Global Footprint Network,6 theworld as a whole went into ecological overshoot in about 1986 (Figure 1). Since then, wehave been consuming more o the planets resources than can be replenished through theregenerative capacity o the biosphere. Globally, we have been living beyond our means.

What has led to this situation? Primarily, two trends can be identied. First, it is true thatglobal population has been increasing, putting additional strain on biocapacity. However,the largest population increases have been seen amongst the poorest countries, whoseper capita consumption was already, and has remained, very low.

Secondly, and much more perniciously, the inequality o resource consumption aroundthe world has increased by a staggering degree. Whilst it may be true that quality o lie

in the West is higher than in many developing nations, so it is also clear that the growingdemand or energy, or ood, or services and or consumer goods that has characterisedeconomic development in the West at least since the Industrial Revolution has beenthe key driver o environmental change. The EU-27 contains around seven per cent othe worlds population, yet currently accounts or around 16 per cent o total planetaryresource consumption.7

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Globalhectares(billions)

Global biocapacity

Global footprint

Fig 1: Gb biccit gb tit 1961st

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There is little doubt that material standards o living are higher in therich West than in the worlds poorest nations. I it were possible oreveryone in the world to live as we do in the West then this would

represent a marked improvement in quality o lie or most people.Unortunately, as has been well known or some time, this is simplynot easible.



a w cit?

Given this unsustainable situation, an obvious question arises: are we usingplanetary resources eciently?

Eciency reers to a ratio o output to input the amount o something desirableproduced or a given amount o something relatively costly or scarce expended.For instance, we oten compare cars by their uel consumption, using a unit suchas miles per gallon the distance that the car can cover or a given amount o uelconsumed. Miles per gallon(or kilometres per litre) is a unit o uel eciency andwe would say that a car is ecient i it can drive or many miles using relatively littleuel. Although we oten talk about eciency in relation to tangible outputs miles,hours, widgets we also use the concept to discuss more subjective matters. Forinstance, when weighing up possible purchases we oten think about value ormoney. Something is good value or money i we get a lot o utility (to use theeconomics jargon) or relatively little outlay.

In itsel, eciency is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. But eciency takes ona value when context is introduced. Eciency is desirable when inputs are limited.Miles per gallon is a useul consideration or most car owners because uel iscostly. Value or money may not be important to multi-millionaires, but it is a criticalconsideration or most o us who have limited incomes and need to make ends meet.

I we consider eciency on the scale o human society and human endeavour, theultimate output o everything that occurs in society economic transactions, socialinteractions, education, healthcare, governance and so on is human well-being. Agood, long, healthy, happy, meaningul lie or ourselves and our amilies is the thingthat most o us value above all else. To the extent that wealth, material possession,technology and so on are important, it is because they contribute to this ultimategoal (Figure 2).

But good lives dont come or ree. They have a cost, in the orm o the planetaryresources which support all human endeavours. As the economist Herman Dalypoints out:

I the economy is seen as an isolated system then there is no environment

to constrain its continual growth. There would be no such thing as an

optimal (or even a maximal) scale o throughput. But i we see the economy

as a subsystem o a larger, but nite and non-growing ecosystem, then

obviously its growth is limited.8

I the planets resources were unlimited, whether or not we used them ecientlywould not matter a great deal. But we know that resources are already severelylimited and becoming ever more so as population and, critically, per capitaconsumption grows. I we are to secure good lives or ourselves, or all peoplearound the world and or uture generations, the question we need to ask is: are weusing planetary resources eciently?

INPUT MEANS

Community

Technology

Healthcare

EconomyValues

Family

Education

Governance

Employment

Consumption

PLANETARY

RESOURCES

LONG AND

HAPPY LIVES

ENDS

Fig 2: Fmt its, ms timt s



The early 1970s in Europe heralded not only a sudden growth in internationalenvironmental concern, but also a deep questioning o Europes uture and its rolein the world. In 1972, Sicco Mansholt, then President o the European Commission,raised a series o provocative questions that are still resonant today:

Will the EEC become a powerul agent or improving living standards and

opportunity in solidarity with less ortunate countries? Or will it remain aselect inward-looking club o some o the worlds richest nations? Will it

continue to produce bigger, aster and more or some to the detriment o

the global environment and the welare o the rest?

Twenty years later, at the conclusion o the Rio Earth Summit in which the EuropeanUnion played a leadership role, Commission President Jacques Delors was awarethat Europes credibility was at stake i:

These agreements signed in Rio remain a dead letter and do not give birth to

ambitious policies that respond to the scale o the challenge that aces us.

Progress since has been shaped by the tension between Europes aspirationtoward the bigger, aster and more economic dynamism characterised byMansholt, and its desire to be a good partner or international development and anenvironmentally responsible global citizen.

Tw gs: lisb Gtbg

When the Treaty o Rome was signed in 1957, increases in competitiveness andeconomic growth were considered to be the primary means o improving living andworking conditions or the people o Europe.9 At the Lisbon European Council inMarch 2000, the heads o State and Government launched the so-called LisbonAgenda, aimed at making Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable o sustainable economic growth with moreand better jobs and greater social cohesion.10 A target was set to achieve three

per cent annual average economic growth and to create 20 million jobs by 2010.Progressive liberalisation and deregulation across the economy, but especially inthe service sector, were the major tools to be used.

But economic growth in Europe has been dependent on increasing materialthroughput, with the eect that greater pressure has been exerted on both theEuropean and the global environment. Recognising this problem, the EU alsoproduced a plan or sustainability to complement the Lisbon Agenda, known as theGothenburg Agenda. Working towards more sustainable production and consumptionhad been on the EUs agenda since at least 1992, when sustainable developmentwas written into the Maastricht Treaty as an explicit objective o the EuropeanCommunity. A more detailed proposition or a long-term strategy (o) dovetailing

policies or economically, socially, and ecologically sustainable development waspresented by the European Commission in Gothenburg, June 2001.11 That meetingled to a Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) based on the principle that theeconomic, social, and environmental eects o all policies should be examined in aco-ordinated way and taken into account in decision-making.

G ivs tt t cst t et

visi e?

I our nation took to similar economic exploitation [as the West],

it would strip the world bare like locusts It took Britain hal the

resources o the planet to achieve this prosperity. How many

planets will a country like India require? Mahatma Gandhi, 1928



Cti cfict?

Do the two agendas Lisbon or growth and Gothenburg or sustainability actually complement each other, or are they undamentally in confict? Both appearto be experiencing problems on their own terms. In February 2005, EuropeanCommission President Jos Manuel Barroso said, Lisbon has been blown ocourse by a combination o economic conditions, international uncertainty, slowprogress in the member states and a gradual loss o political ocus.12 Growthwas less than expected, and ewer jobs were created than hoped or.13 But inresponse there were redoubled eorts to promote, in particular, the liberalisation oservices, raising ears o a race to the bottom in standards, with high social andenvironmental costs.

Separately, the sustainable development strategy has also encountered diculties.One detailed review by civil society organisations in 2004 claimed that many othe 80 commitments made in 2001 had made little or no progress and, moreover,that the demands o the Lisbon Agenda were watering down the originalcommitments.14 A public consultation launched by the Commission in 2004showed that a majority thought that progress to date had been unsatisactory.15

In February 2005, the Commission concluded that the strategy or sustainabledevelopment had to be reviewed because o a number o new changes in theworld since 2001. These included European enlargement, the rise o instability

linked to terrorism, new EU international commitments, urther globalisation, and,crucially, persistent and increasingly apparent signs o environmental problemsin the EU and globally.16 The most serious threats to sustainable development inEurope and the world were:

Climate change, public health, transport and land use, management o

natural resources, the challenges o an ageing society as well as poverty

and social exclusion.17

The danger is that the economic and policy drivers o Mansholts bigger, aster, andmore, will mean that Europes bold ambitions towards sustainability become whatDelors eared: a dead letter, incapable o acing up to the scale o the problem.

The best way to avoid this outcome is to promote a more widespreadunderstanding o the real relationship between lived experience, wealth andassociated environmental impact. In this way we can move towards a system thatsupports good lives, without destroying the resources on which we depend. This isa principle aim o HPI.



hpI s ms cic

HPI poses two important questions:

1. Do high levels o resource consumption necessarilylead to high well-beingoutcomes?

2. Is it possible to achieve high levels o well-being without high levels oconsumption?

In other words, do the gains in well-being achieved by the richest Western nationsjustiy the massive additional strain that these countries place on the environment?

The most straightorward way to see how countries in Europe are aring in termso their resource consumption eciency and so to understand the uniqueperspective which HPI provides is to walk-through the calculation step by step,comparing nations at each turn.

hm w-big

T w-big zitgist

The top hal o the HPI equation is human well-being. In the UK, at least, well-being is very much in vogue. From Labour peer Lord Layards book Happiness,18 tothe BBCs television series The Happiness Formula and Making Slough Happy, tothe Conservative party leader David Camerons claim that we should be ocusednot just on GDP, but on GWB general well-being,19 it seems that everyone istalking about it. This interest in well-being is now beginning to infuence the waythat governments measure their success. In the UK, the Local Government Act o2000 gave local authorities the power to promote well-being and required them todevelop a comprehensive strategy to this end.

In the academic community there has also been renewed interest in the actorsthat enable people truly to fourish. The so-called Positive Psychology movementin the USA has given rise to much ground-breaking research on the developmento character strengths, the role o positive emotions, the determinants o happinessand other related topics.20 Meanwhile, parallel research by economists hasproblematised the relationship between wealth and well-being and increased ourunderstanding o the concept o utility.21

In one sense, the only unusual thing about all this research and political interestis that it did not happen earlier; ater all, living a good lie has been the goal opeople and societies or millennia. It seems reasonable to ask i there is anythingabout the current well-being debate that distinguishes it rom previous discussiono the subject. Is it merely old wine in new bottles? The central dierence can be

summed-up in one word: measurement. There are now established, well-validatedapproaches to the assessment o peoples subjective well-being, at both theindividual and population levels. Measurement adds a critical new dimensionbecause what gets measured, matters. With proper measurement, comparisons canbe drawn both between people and over time. Measurement enables hypotheses

hw is e ig?

HPI is an indicator o eciency. Specically, it compares the ultimateoutcome o human endeavour experienced well-being with theultimate input planetary resources at the national level.

hpI =W-big

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to be tested, and alsied, about which aspects o social and economiclie support well-being and which undermine it. Most importantly o all, itallows some o the really big questions what is society or? what doesreal prosperity mean? to be reramed in terms that give a central place topeoples subjective experience o their lives.

Although wider recognition that subjective well-being can be measured hasonly recently begun to seep into political discourse, inormation on subjectivelie satisaction within nations has been gathered rom large-scale populationsurveys or at least 40 years. Typically, people are asked questions such as: I

you consider your lie overall, how satised would you say you are nowadays?Responses are given on a 010 scale, rom not at all satised to extremelysatised. Satisaction with lie overall tends to be more stable over timethan other subjective measures o happiness, since it refects a summary ojudgements about eelings.22

Research suggests that people answer questions regarding their liesatisaction reliably.23 There is ample evidence that sel-reported happinessand satisaction is strongly related to various objective measures, includingstandard measures o mental health, such as suicide rates.24 Happierpeople tend to be more involved in social and civic lie,25 are more likely tobehave in environmentally responsible ways,26 have better amily and socialrelationships at home,27 and are more productive at work.28 An extensiverecent review o literature notes that experience o subjective happiness andsatisaction are positively associated with various positive health outcomes.29Levels o lie satisaction have even been shown to predict working days lostthrough illness ve years later.30 Recently, some researchers have suggestedthat subjective lie satisaction may be the single, most eective measureo poverty, because it is infuenced by both economic and social aspects owell-being.31

Many o the known predictors and correlates o subjective lie satisactionare already well embedded within existing policy rameworks. Social andeconomic deprivation, mental health and social mobility, or instance, areall routinely measured in national statistics rameworks. Yet none o these

measures ully predict subjective lie satisaction as such, subjective ratingscontain valuable inormation that is not captured elsewhere. I the majority opeople in a country report dissatisaction with their lives then this seems to bea reasonable indication that something is awry, either with government policy(or at least its implementation), with society, or with both.

Incorporating subjective data on lie satisaction distinguishes HPI romexisting development metrics. Peoples experience o their quality o lie is atleast as important as their actual physical circumstances. It is no good, orexample, arguing that someone with excellent health, high household incomeand a good standard o education mustbe satised with their lie i that isnot how they actually eel many people in just such circumstances suerrom debilitating depression and anxiety, or instance (conditions which, it has

been argued, are growing in Western society partly as a unction o increasingafuence and the liestyle changes that it brings32). Similarly, it should notbe assumed that people living in relative poverty or with chronic healthconditions must necessarily be dissatised with their lives.



li stiscti i e

Europe is one region o the world where high-quality data on lie satisactionis readily available. To ensure a robust measure o lie satisaction, we tookthe mean o the national averages rom our dierent cross-national surveys,all o which were conducted in 2003/2004. As well as the World ValuesSurvey,33 which we used in the original HPI report, these included theEurobarometer,34 the European Social Survey,35 and the European Qualityo Lie Survey.36 Agreement between the surveys was very high, with aCronbachs alpha, the most widely used measure o reliability, o 0.99.37(A Cronbachs alpha o 1 would indicate complete agreement.) Given thatall our surveys were completely independent o one another and taken romdierent samples o the population, this highlights the robustness o liesatisaction data. In other words, observed dierences between countriesare likely to be real and meaningul, and not simply the result o poor samplemethodology.

So who are the most satised people in Europe? Table 2 gives the rankorder o countries in Europe by lie satisaction.

Out in ront are the Danes, closely ollowed by Switzerland and then threeo the other Scandinavian countries. The UK lies mid-table, along with mostother Western European nations. Bringing up the rear are the countries o

Eastern Europe.

It is worth noting that even within Europe there is considerable variation.The dierence between Denmark at the top, and Bulgaria at the bottom isextremely marked over our points on a ten-point scale. This is important,or it gives the lie to the idea that lie satisaction is essentially xedand unvarying. There can be little doubt that this represents a real andsignicant dierence between how the average Dane and the averageBulgarian eel about their lives.

Tb 2: li Stiscti i e

rk Ct 0-10

1 Denmark 8.4

2 Switzerland 8.2

3 Iceland 8.0

4 Finland 7.8

5 Sweden 7.8

6 Luxembourg 7.7

7 Ireland 7.7

8 Netherlands 7.5

9 Austria 7.5

10 Norway 7.5

11 Malta 7.4

12 Belgium 7.4

13 Cyprus 7.2

14 Spain 7.2

15 United Kingdom 7.2

16 Germany 7.0

17 Slovenia 6.9

18 Italy 6.8

19 France 6.6

20 Czech Republic 6.4

21 Greece 6.3

22 Poland 6.1

23 Portugal 5.7

24 Estonia 5.6

25 Hungary 5.5

26 Slovakia 5.5

27 Romania 5.4

28 Latvia 5.1

29 Lithuania 5.1

30 Bulgaria 4.1WorST

BeST



li xctc h li ys

Most indicators used or making international comparisons do not includesubjective data. The UNs Human Development Index (HDI), or instance, isa very widely used metric that combines three dierent objective indicators:lie expectancy at birth, level o education and GDP. HDI is an excellentmeasure o material welare; however, it does not take explicit accounto the relationship between experiencedwell-being and the materialcircumstances in a country rather, it assumes that the one predicts theother. Measures o lie satisaction provide valuable inormation about howpeople experience their lives in dierent countries that is not captured bypurely objective indicators o welare like HDI.

Nevertheless, or the purpose o understanding consumption eciency inthe broadest terms, it is preerable to combine subjective lie satisactionwith a robust objective indicator o physical welare. Lie expectancy atbirth is such an indicator. It is an estimate based on the prevailing social,environmental and economic conditions in a country and is calculatedthrough large-scale data collection o mortality rates at dierent ages. Lieexpectancy is popular as a metric o welare across nations because it isstrongly related to material standards o living in a country. For instance, it isextremely sensitive to the rate o inant mortality, which is itsel a robust proxyindicator o access to sanitation and the state o healthcare. By including

lie expectancy as part o the denition o well-being, thereore, we are notsuggesting that a long lie is necessarily a good thing (although most peoplewould probably say that it is, all other things being equal), but that it capturesobjective actors about quality o lie that are equally important as howpeople eel about their lives.

Table 3 shows lie expectancies or the countries in our sample. As beore,it is Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries that perorm best, althoughthey are now joined by Mediterranean nations such as Italy. EasternEuropean countries, particularly the Baltic states, languish at the bottom othe table.

The top hal o the HPI eciency equation combines objective andsubjective well-being in an indicator developed by the Dutch sociologistRuut Veenhoven38 and known as Happy Lie Years (HLY). To calculate anations mean HLY, ratings o subjective lie satisaction are multiplied bymean lie expectancy at birth and divided by ten. Veenhoven describes thisas an ultimate output measure, because it incorporates both apparent andassumed quality o lie.39

Tb 3: li exctc i e

rk Ct ys

1 Switzerland 80.5

2 Sweden 80.1

3 Iceland 79.6

4 Italy 79.6

5 Spain 79.6

6 Norway 79.5

7 France 79.3

8 Cyprus 79.1

9 Greece 78.8

10 Belgium 78.7

11 Austria 78.7

12 Malta 78.7

13 Netherlands 78.5

14 Germany 78.5


16 Finland 78.4

17 Ireland 78.2

18 Luxembourg 77.9

19 Denmark 77.4

20 Portugal 77.3

21 Slovenia 76.4


23 Poland 74.6

24 Slovakia 73.8

25 Hungary 72.4

26 Bulgaria 72.1

27 Lithuania 71.9

28 Romania 71.5

29 Estonia 71.3

30 Latvia 70.7WorST

BeST



pt sc s

I the ultimate output o human endeavour is long and happylives, then the undamental input the bottom hal o theeciency equation is planetary resource consumption,represented here by carbon ootprint.40 This is a measureo the land area required to support the plant lie needed toabsorb and sequester CO

2emissions rom ossil uels used by

a country, based on its levels o consumption. This measuretakes account o the act that in a global economy peopleconsume resources and ecological services rom all over theworld, and reallocates the carbon costs o such consumptionaccordingly. It also accounts or the embodied ootprint thatis associated with the production o goods. For example, thecarbon emitted in the manuacture o a car produced in Taiwanbut bought by someone living in Slovenia will count towardsSlovenias ootprint, not Taiwans.

Carbon ootprints include estimations o the carbon emissionsinvolved in the production o nuclear energy. Proponents onuclear energy tend to overlook the energy costs involved inthe set-up and decommissioning o nuclear plants, the miningand rening o uranium, and in dealing with radioactive waste.

In an attempt to take these costs into account, we considereda recent report by the Irish think-tank Feasta.41 It demonstratesthat, at a very conservative estimate, 1 kW o electricityproduced by nuclear power has approximately one-third thecarbon ootprint o an equivalent amount o electricity producedrom gas. For more details on this, and a ull explanation othe rationale or using carbon ootprint here rather than totalecological ootprint (as in the 2006 worldwide HPI), seeAppendix 2.

Table 4 shows countries in Europe ranked by the size otheir per capita carbon ootprint. I we take the worlds totalbiocapacity measured in global hectares (gha) (1.8 gha perperson) and subtract rom it all that is required to support ourdietary needs (0.8 gha) and built-up land use, we are letwith 1.0 g/ha per person available or carbon sequestration.42Countries living within these means can be deemed to havean acceptable carbon ootprint satisying one-planet living.Clearly, then, the rst thing to note about this table is thatEurope as a whole requires very signicantly more than itsequitable air share o biocapacity to sustain current levels oconsumption. Indeed, by this standard, only Latvia is livingwithin its global air share.43

We should also note the large disparity in carbon ootprint

between nations. Even discounting Luxembourg as an outlyingcase, the dierence between top (Estonia) and bottom (Latvia)is a actor o seven. Even amongst the relatively rich nationso Europe, then, there is considerable variation in per capitacarbon ootprint (or example, a three-old dierence betweenFinland and Iceland).

Tb 4: Cb tits i e

rk CtGb cts

cit

1 Luxembourg 6.88

2 Estonia 3.54

3 Finland 3.39


5 Greece 3.17

6 Denmark 3.17

7 Ireland 3.12

8 Belgium 3.04

9 Switzerland 3.04

10 Austria 2.82

11 Netherlands 2.80


13 Spain 2.69

14 Germany 2.59

15 Malta 2.53

16 France 2.52

17 Italy 2.52

18 Cyprus 2.26

19 Slovenia 2.10

20 Norway 1.98

21 Portugal 1.96

22 Hungary 1.87

23 Poland 1.83

24 Bulgaria 1.62

25 Slovakia 1.61

26 Sweden 1.60

27 Lithuania 1.34

28 Romania 1.06

29 Iceland 1.06

30 Latvia 0.45BeST

WorST



pttig it tgt: hpI

This leads us directly to the question o eciency considered earlier.Some countries are happier than others, whilst some have better longevityoutcomes. Some countries also consume a good deal more than others.What is the relationship between experienced well-being and consumption?Figure 3 gives us some hints. The top-let corner o the graph is wherecountries should aspire to be maximising well-being and minimisingootprint. Which (i any) countries in Europe consume eciently that is,support long and happy lives without consuming too much?

HPI, shown in Table 5, is calibrated so that a country with mean liesatisaction o 10, lie expectancy o 85 and a carbon ootprint equivalent toone planet living would achieve HPI o 100.

Tb 5: T e h

pt Ix

rk Ct hpI

1 Iceland 72.3

2 Sweden 63.3

3 Norway 56.0

4 Switzerland 51.6

5 Cyprus 51.3

6 Denmark 49.8

7 Malta 49.4

8 Slovenia 48.5

9 Netherlands 48.4

10 Austria 47.9

11 Latvia 47.5

12 Spain 47.4

13 Ireland 46.5

14 Italy 46.4

15 Germany 46.3

16 Finland 45.7

17 Belgium 45.5

18 France 44.8

19 Poland 43.9

20 Romania 43.7


22 Portugal 41.8

23 Slovakia 40.8


25 Lithuania 39.0

26 Hungary 38.3

27 Greece 38.3

28 Bulgaria 29.7

29 Luxembourg 29.6

30 Estonia 29.3WorST

BeST



0.0

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rcapita)

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xembourgscarbonfootprintisoffthescale

:6.8

8)

IS

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AT:

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tria

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lgium

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lgaria

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itzerlan

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blic

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Denmark

EE:

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nia

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in

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d

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HU:

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lan

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ly

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tvia

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lta

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The success o the three Scandinavian countries at the top o the table is attributableto similar actors. All three are relatively energy-ecient, with extensive district heatingschemes which utilise the energy wasted in other sectors or example waste heatrom electricity generation and industry removing the need to burn urther uelresources, such as oil and gas, or space heating. Furthermore, under environmentallycontrolled conditions, district heating utilises the energy contained in complex or local

uels which others are unwilling or unable to use, or example tallow,47 waste sludgerom pulp mills, and logging residues (including bark, woodchips and sawdust).All three countries have moved signicantly away rom ossil uel dependence orproducing their electricity.

Leading the HPI table by some distance is Iceland. Its volcanism gives it a distinctadvantage, providing an essentially ree, easily harvested and sustainable energysource in the orm o geothermal energy (located on the Mid-Atlantic ridge, Icelandhas over 200 volcanoes and 600 hot springs). The energy security provided bygeothermal energy has strongly infuenced the standard o living in Iceland one

estimate suggests that using geothermal or space heating instead o ossiluels saves Iceland about US$100 million in imported oil annually.48 Practicallyall space heating (89 per cent) comes rom district heating schemes uelled bygeothermal energy, and around 99.9 per cent o electricity comes rom hydropoweror geothermal power stations. The industry, transport and shing sectors are theonly signicant emitters o carbon in Iceland. Politically and socially, Iceland tsthe Scandinavian model. Its government commits the most resources to health inEurope, resulting in a society with high lie expectancy. Icelands citizens also reporthigh levels o trust and the lowest ear o crime in Europe. It is also interesting tonote that, despite the cold, Icelanders watch very little television 28 per cent lessper day than the British, or example.49

Low carbon energy is also a high priority in Swedish government policy. Just 27 percent o primary energy in Sweden comes rom ossil uels, resulting in a low percapita CO

2emissions and CO

2intensity actor. (Compare this to the UK, where a

massive 89 per cent o primary energy is derived rom oil, gas or coal.) Renewableenergy contributes to around 26 per cent o Swedens primary energy (well abovethe EU-27 average o 12 per cent), the majority o which comes rom hydropower.Most Swedes also enjoy high standards o living, with the third-highest lieexpectancy in Europe and the second-lowest levels o income inequality. Swedenboasts the highest rates o political engagement in Europe, with 45 per cent o thepopulation claiming to have participated in some orm o political activity (in additionto voting).

As one o the top three producers o natural gas in Europe, Norways rejection oossil uels or domestic energy is notable (90 per cent o the 85 bn m 3 producedevery year is exported to other countries). Norway has invested in large-scalehydropower projects which produce 99 per cent o its electricity. Norway tops theHuman Development Index worldwide indicating that material living standards areexcellent. Reported levels o social capital are high, particularly trust and eelings osaety or both o which Norway ranks second in Europe.

nw 3 eu hpI 56.0

Sw 2 eu hpI 63.3

Ic 1 eu hpI 72.3



Bttm

Bulgarians report the lowest levels o lie satisaction in Europe. Whilst Bulgariahas a marginally higher GDP per capita than Romania, household expenditure isalso the lowest in the EU, suggesting that Bulgarians actually have less disposableincome than Romanians. Low material standards o living also coincide with lowscores on measures o good governance and low levels o government spendingon health and education (as a percentage o total spending). Bulgaria has arelatively diverse energy mix, but one-third o this is derived rom solid uel, resultingin an above-average carbon intensity.

Luxembourg perorms poorly or very dierent reasons. One o the wealthiestcountries in the world, levels o lie satisaction are high though by no means thehighest in Europe but so is per capita carbon ootprint (6.9 gha per person44).Domestic energy production is 100 per cent renewable, but this accounts or justtwo per cent o the total primary energy, the rest being imported rom carbon-intensive sources. Much the largest contributor to Luxembourgs excessive ootprint,however, is its enormous transport sector which is responsible or around 60 per

cent o total energy consumption double the European average.

Bottom o the HPI table is Estonia. Whilst Estonia, one o the Baltic tigers, postedthe second-highest GDP growth rate in Europe in 2006 and has been praised asone o the ten most liberal economies in the world,45 it has not enjoyed comparablegains in well-being. Perhaps well-being increases have been mitigated by decliningsocial cohesion Estonia has high income inequality, coupled with particularlylow levels o political engagement and high ear o crime (the second highest inEurope). Worse than other Eastern European countries, Estonia combines these lowlevels o well-being with an extremely heavy carbon ootprint. This is partly due to

its use o oil shale,46

a low-grade solid uel, or 56 per cent o primary energy arabove the EU-27 average o 18 per cent.

nti ccts w-big

In a seminal paper, US psychologists Ed Diener and Martin Seligman noted that:

[Economic indicators] have glaring shortcomings as approximations, even rst approximations, o well-

being. We are now in the position to assess well-being directly, and thereore should establish a system o

national accounts o well-being to supplement the economic measures. Indeed, it can be argued that thewell-being measures should be central, and that the economic indices are best understood in their relation to

enhancing well-being50

This refects a growing interest in developing better means o measuring progress than indicators based solelyon market transactions that can be observed worldwide. Even the Organisation or Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD), a bastion o ree market economics, recently hosted a world orum on measuring the progresso societies with the explicit intention o looking beyond economic indicators.

The nations o Europe all accept the need to develop sustainably. This can only be achieved with a proper understandingo the relationships, and trade-os, between economic, social and environmental goals. With metrics that measureonly economic costs and benets, however, this will be a tough task. As an important step toward more meaningulmeasurement, we believe that European governments should invest in and implement national accounts o well-being.This would allow policy-makers to better understand the impact o their decisions on the lives o the people that theyaect.

In 2006, a team led by Proessor Felicia Huppert o Cambridge University and including ,51 made a successulapplication to design a component o the third round o the European Social Survey. This module was designed with the

explicit purpose o operationalising Diener and Seligmans vision in a European policy context. Data rom this survey,available in Autumn 2007, will allow or ne-grained comparisons o personal and social well-being across mucho Europe.

Nic Marks is the ounder o s centre or well-being

Bgi 28 eu hpI 29.7

lxmbg 29 eu hpI 29.6

esti 30 eu hpI 29.3


22/47

European (un)Happy Planet Index 20 The European (un)Happy Planet Index 21

Highest

High

Medium

Low

Lowest

The European Happy Planet Index

29.7

29.6

29.3



Wt is tim cic?

In the case o eciency, inputs clearly are limited due to the unavoidable act that we onlyhave one planet. Figure 1 shows that even as global biocapacity has increased slightlyover the last 40 years or so, the rate o increase in demand has signicantly outstrippedit. Since the mid-1980s, we have been consuming the planets resources aster than theycan be replenished through natural processes. Worse, the gap between consumption andbiocapacity has been widening and the trend shows little sign o reversing.

As resources have become increasingly constrained over the years, we might hopethat this would have been accompanied by an upwards trend in eciency. In act, asFigure 4 shows, this has not been the case in the countries o Europe or which we havereliable data. Rather than increasing, the eciency o the nine oldest EU members isaround 10 per cent lower now than it was in 1961 (the earliest point where adequatedata is available).

What has happened? As can be seen clearly rom Figure 4, HLY has improved modestly.This has been largely driven by lie expectancy, which has increased in all nine countries(by an average o eight years). Meanwhile, there has been very little notable increase insubjective lie satisaction in any o these countries over the last 40 years the mean

increase is just our per cent and some have experienced a mild decline. Yet over thesame period, ootprint per capita increased much more dramatically by around 70 percent on average.

Tim ts

In itsel eciency is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. The levelo eciency which is desirable depends both on the availabilityo inputs and the optimal level o outputs achieved. I inputs are

unlimited then maximising eciency is o little importance i theyare constrained then it becomes vital.

1961

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angesince1961

Fig 4: Ts i h li ys, tit sc cic i e, 1961st

Data or Belgium, Denmark,France, Germany, Ireland,Italy, Luxembourg, theNetherlands and the UnitedKingdom combined



lt vs

Not all countries in Europe have industrialised and experienced economic growth atthe same rate, or over the same period. The last 40 years have seen considerablechanges in Europe, with some countries emerging rom the shadow o oppression.Greece, Portugal and Spain were all military dictatorships as recently as the 1970s.

The economies o all three countries have grown markedly in recent times andwith it their consumption o resources. Availability o data does not allow us toconsider consumption eciency or these countries urther back than the mid-1980s. However, even this comparison is instructive, as Figure 5 shows. In Spain,or instance, GDP per capita has increased by around 175 per cent since 1986, butthis has been accompanied by a 75 per cent rise in per capita ootprint, roughly the

same proportional increase observed in Old Europe since the 1960s. The averageSpaniard born now can expect to live three years longer than his elder compadreborn in 1986. However, no such increase has been observed in subjective liesatisaction over the same period. The story is similar in Greece. Footprint has risenby 76 per cent since 1986, no doubt driven by the 140 per cent growth in per capitaGDP. Lie expectancy at birth is just three years longer than it was in 1986. Mean liesatisaction has remained unchanged.

Cs t uK

Compared to data rom the early 1960s, modest improvements in mean lieexpectancy in the UK have actually been accompanied by a slight decline inaverage lie satisaction o around six per cent. Per capita ootprint, meanwhile,

has increased by well over 50 per cent. The result has been to push the UK to thepoint where conservatively, it would take over three planets like earth to supportthe whole world at the UKs level o consumption per person. As a consequence,the pattern o change in consumption eciency at delivering well-being isunimpressive. Following a sharp decline throughout the 1960s and early 1970s,eciency has stagnated.

What does this mean in practice? Average UK citizens can now expect to liveslightly longer than was the case in 1961, which implies that they can also expectbetter healthcare and may tend to eat a better diet. They will certainly have a morecarbon-intensive liestyle, with more consumer goods, more cars, more oreignholidays and more imported ood. And yet, perhaps oddly given that they somehowmanage to consume almost double the amount o planetary resources per person

than in 1961, they will probably eel i anything less satised with their livesoverall. Perhaps it is no wonder that in a recent survey conducted by the BBCasking in which decade since the 1950s people would most like to live, the winner(with almost one-third o the 31,000 votes cast) was the 1960s.52

1987

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HPI

Greece

Spain

Portugal

Fig 5: dciig sc cic w-big i Si, ptg Gc



Gis sss

What do we learn rom this detour into the past? There is no doubt that lie haschanged, in some cases very dramatically, or many people in Europe over previousdecades. The gains in lie expectancy experienced did not happen by accident they imply real, tangible improvement to material standards o living, and weshould not be churlish about acknowledging this. But it is also true that the materialstandard o living in much o Europe was already very good indeed in the 1960s,by comparison with the rest o the world. Such gains as have been made representthe icing on the cake rather than undamental increases in welare, and they havecome at an unsustainably high environmental price.

And this is the nub o the argument. Eciency as we have argued is importantwhen resources are limited and trade-os must be made. By using considerablymore than their air share o planetary resources, European nations have madesome, limited, gains to their quality o lie. But can citizens o Europe look at theseimprovements to well-being achieved in recent times, compare them with theecological costs incurred, and claim hand on heart that this was an ecientuseo the planets resources?

eg cics i wmig w

Nuclear power is being promoted as the answer to climate change and energy insecurity. But it is too slow, tooexpensive, too centralised, and too much o a security risk.53

Some argue that nuclear power could happily co-exist with renewables. But with limited nancial resources availablethere is a real danger that nuclear will continue to crowd out cleaner, renewable alternatives. A report produced by

a UK government department concluded that A sustained programme o investment in currently proposed nuclearpower plants could adversely aect the development o smaller scale technologies.54 Moreover, nuclear power relieson the inecient national grid, whereas renewables lend themselves to a more ecient decentralised system.

Neither is nuclear power as low carbon as commonly believed. A ull lie-cycle analyses o nuclear plants by retirednuclear physicist and ormer advocate o nuclear power Philip Bartlett Smith, concluded that in the worst-casescenario where low-grade ores are used, nuclear was actually less climate riendly than a gas-red power station.Even more conservative estimates suggest that total carbon emission may by around one-third those o conventionalossil uel plants.55

Another requently overlooked problem is that uranium is an extremely scarce resource. The International AtomicEnergy Agency (IAEA), a UN body that promotes peaceul uses o nuclear power, suggests that known conventional,

recoverable resources o uranium are enough to last only another 85 years at the current rate o use. It also observes,The period or which resources are sucient decreases the more nuclear power is assumed to grow in theuture.56

Despite decades o blank cheques rom government (on a scale that the renewable sector can only dream about) thenuclear industry has consistently ailed to demonstrate economic viability. In the USA no new nuclear power stationshave been ordered or over 25 years. In Europe, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden are committed toclosing existing plants. The UK Government aces real and costly problems with its existing stock, including courtaction rom the European Commission or saety ailures and having no reliable gure or the amount o plutoniumand uranium contained in waste tanks at Sellaeld.

On top o these issues, o course, there is still the unsolved problem o nuclear waste surely an unacceptable riskin the current security climate.

Nuclear power is not the solution to the worlds problems.

Andrew Simms is s policy director


26/47



distibtiA diverse energy mix consisting primarily o renewables at dierent productionscales avours a distributed energy system. Yet there is a perplexing reluctanceto embrace the idea o decentralised energy. Some countries in Europe seem tobe moving towards a nuclear revival, yet by doing so are committing themselvesto an inecient energy system or decades to come. Centralised energy systems(like, or example, that o the UK) lose an average o seven per cent o all electricitygenerated through transmission and distribution losses.64 A Greenpeace reportestimates that as much as two-thirds o potential energy rom uels is wasted asa result o ineciencies. Moving to a decentralised energy system in the UK couldcontribute at least 15 per cent to the governments carbon reduction targets.65

Decentralised energy generation is mainstream in some European countries,

particularly Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, but also Germany, Austria,Finland, Italy and Spain. A decentralised approach reers both to district heating,which is extremely common in Scandinavian countries and also to private wireelectricity (i.e. not rom a centralised grid) rom power stations close to demand, sothat energy is generated close to the point o use and both heat and power can beused locally. In cities and urban areas, district heating is the most economical andenvironmentally competitive alternative to individual heating rom oil or gas. Whencoupled with generation o electricity in CHP (combined heat and power), districtheating is clearly a preerable energy solution.

Denmark exemplies how European countries can benet rom moving todecentralised energy. In 1973, 94 per cent o Denmarks uel supply came rom

oil imports and, as a consequence, it was hit hard by the oil crises o the 1970s.Following this, Denmark embarked on an aggressive CHP development programme.According to statistics rom the Danish Energy Agency, CHP now has a share o50 per cent o the electricity production and provides around 60 per cent o spaceheating.

Estonia

Luxembourg

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Greece

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NetherlandsSlovenia

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% of electricity generated from renewable energy

sources in gross electricity consumption

0 20 40 60 80 100

Fig 6: pctg cticit gt m wb g

scs i gss cticit csmti ctis e i hpI

k



Mkig t mst wt v gt

No other country in Europe is blessed with the natural energy endowments oIceland. However, many make ar too little use o their potential capacity. Greece,or instance, has a relatively high carbon ootprint which is in part due to its heavyreliance on lignite mined rom an abundant domestic resource. Lignite-red powerstations account or around 60 per cent o electricity generation.66 Meanwhile, justve per cent o primary energy is sourced rom renewable energy capacity and thisis mainly derived rom large-scale hydro.67 In addition to its lignite, however, Greecealso has substantial onshore wind capacity, estimated as the tenth-largest in theEU,68 along with enormous potential or solar thermal energy.

The UK, too, has an abundance o resources with which it could meet itsstated targets or cutting greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the uptakeo renewable energy. Without even taking account o savings rom energyconservation, increased eciency and demand management, wave power couldprovide around 15 per cent o UK electricity demand and tidal power approximately6.5 per cent.69 The UK has 40 per cent o the total available wind energy resourcesin Europe theoretically enough to meet the countrys electricity needs eight timesover.70 But even given the current limiting structure o the national grid system andthe nature o demand, a combination o oshore and onshore wind could provideup to 35 per cent o the UKs electricity.71 Micro wind generators might provide aurther 1015 per cent o the electricity needed at household level, rising in prime

locations up to 80 per cent. Indeed, i just around one-third o the UKs electricitycustomers installed 2kW microgen PV or wind systems, the resulting energy yieldwould match the capacity o the UK nuclear programme.72 Solar cells, thoughcurrently still expensive, are thought to be ultimately capable o providing 510 percent o the UKs electricity needs, with solar thermal units providing around hal o aUK households annual hot water requirements.73

W-big t csvti

The World Health Organisations Millennium Ecosystem Assessmentestimated that approximately 60 per cent o theworlds ecosystem services are being degraded or used unsustainably.74 This has serious implications or humanwell-being.

Biodiversity underpins the provision o a huge array o ecosystem services which contribute to the well-being oindividuals and societies in dierent ways. In addition to essential goods, such as crops, timber and sh, natureprovides us with other services that are directly benecial to well-being, rom clean water and resh air to beautiullandscapes. Signicant loss o biodiversity could have knock-on eects by damaging natural ecological processes,such as pollination and pest control.

Psychologists have shown that access to natural environments improves physical and mental health, and there issome evidence that the presence o green space contributes to social cohesion and desirable social outcomes, suchas lower crime rates. Biodiversity also supports economic activity the presence o unique and varied wildlie, orinstance, can generate signicant benets or local economies and help to support rural livelihoods.

Despite their benets, environmental services are routinely taken or granted. It is clear that continued biodiversity lossand the unsustainable management o ecosystem services will reduce the ability o uture generations to meet their

needs. But protecting nature is also in our interests now. We should saeguard the environment in all its richness andvariety because we depend on it or our quality-o-lie and because we have a moral duty towards it.

Aniol Esteban is s head o environment



Csmti iqit

The challenge o sustainable development has always been in part a challengeto address the issue o equity.75 Sustainable development places a premium onreducing inequalities: o incomes, o resources, o impacts and (by extension) owell-being across dierent sections o society. This is reerred to as intra-generationalequity and arises rom the basic assumptions that all people share the same basicneeds and rights, whilst none have greater a prioriright to use o global resources thanothers. But there is also a time dimension to equity. True sustainability demands thatwe look to the well-being o uture generations as well as that o the current generation to inter-generational equity. A society in which people pursue their own well-beingwithout regard either to the well-being o other people today, or to the well-being outure generations, is not sustainable.

Some recent data gathered by illustrate the point about equity very clearly. At thelaunch o the rst Happy Planet Report in 2006, a web-based survey was conductedcontaining questions about liestyle consumption patterns, diet, health, amily history as well as subjective lie satisaction. Using these data, estimates o ootprint andlie expectancy could be calculated, and thus a personal HPI. Some 34,000 people inEurope completed the survey.76

livig i, ivig igt

Many nations in Europe now require a vast amount o planetaryresource consumption merely to maintain standards o experiencedwell-being that are only marginally higher than they were 40 years

ago. Meanwhile, as the rate o consumption grows unabated, so dothe attendant costs to the planet.

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Fig 7: rsts m hpI i sv: li stiscti csmti i e



Figure 7 shows this data. The blue line represents the distribution o ootprint acrossthe total sample, expressed in terms o the number o planets worth o resourcesthat would be required i everyone on the planet were to live the same way. To therightermost end o the distribution are those people with high consumption liestyles,approaching seven planet living. To the let are those whose liestyles have theleast environmental impact, approaching the planetary air share one planet living.77The arrows depict the nature o the transition that is required both to level and lowerthe consumption playing eld towards equitable and sustainable use o the earthsresources.

These data represent both a challenge and an opportunity. They are challengingbecause they show starkly the sheer extent o European over-use o planetaryresources. Not only is the distribution o ootprint extremely unequal in this sample, itis also ar too high in absolute terms.

Where is the opportunity in this bleak message? It lies in the lack o any signicantrelationship between well-being and ootprint. These data do not support anunappealing choice between business as usual at the expense o the planetand uture generations, or compromised well-being to minimise environmentaldegradation. In act, they suggest that well-being has little to do with consumption;which, in turn, allows or the possibility that ootprint could be reduced signicantlywithout leading to widespread loss in well-being.

Sci cts

This nding is well-supported by evidence rom the research literature. Althougheconomic conditions undoubtedly play a role in determining well-being, they are arrom being the only important actor. Why, or instance, do Cypriots report a mean liesatisaction o 7.2 whereas Portuguese only score 5.7 despite the act that the twocountries have similar levels o per capita household expenditure?

Figure 8 shows the relationship between lie satisaction and three key socialvariables income inequality, trust within the population, and voluntary and politicalengagement when the relative eect o wealth is statistically actored-out. Liesatisaction is at its highest in countries with low income inequality. It is also relativelyhigher where survey respondents believed that most people can be trusted, and have

been engaged in political activity or voluntary work good proxies or what might betermed social capital.78 Those countries with lower lie satisaction than would bepredicted by wealth alone tend to have lower social capital, whilst those that havehigher-than-expected lie satisaction tend to have higher levels o social capital.

ps csmti

In addition to these kinds o social actors, there are hidden aspects o personalconsumption that complicate the relationship between income and well-being. Tounderstand this, we need to ask not how much we consume, by whywe do so.

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with life satisfaction predicted by income

Fig 8: rtisis btw sci cts i stiscti



The answer is not as obvious as might rst appear. The relationship betweenconsumption and well-being in rich countries is o a dierent kind than in poorercountries. In the latter, people have basic needs or subsistence and survival that aremet (or, all too oten in many countries, unmet) by the commodities they purchase. Themajority o consumption is essential or survival. In richer countries, however, it is socialcontext that to a large extent determines what a person eels they must have or agood lie. A much smaller proportion o our consumption in the West is essential in anybasic needs sense this is true even or those who are poor by the relative standardso their society.

Bringing home the disparity between lived experience and resource consumption is noteasy because prevailing norms and expectations play such a large role in determiningwhat we thinkwe need to lead a good lie. As the respected development economistAmartya Sen has noted, our needs in the West have little to do with any serious decitsin physical welare and everything to do with cultural actors:

To lead a lie without shame, to be able to visit and entertain ones riends,

to keep track o what is going on and what others are talking about, and so

on, requires a more expensive bundle o goods and services in a society that

is generally richer and in which most people have, say, means o transport,

afuent clothing, radios or television sets, and so on...79

The irony is that this ever more expensive bundle o goods and services does not

seem to make people any happier. National trends in subjective lie satisaction staystubbornly fat once a airly low level o GDP per capita is reached.80 US psychologistSonja Lyubomirsky and her colleagues have argued (on the basis o an extensivereview o research) that only around 10 per cent o the variation in subjectivehappiness observed in Western populations is attributable to dierences in actualmaterial circumstances, such as income and possessions. Once people have enoughto survive with reasonable comort, they tend to adapt quickly to urther improvementsin their material standard o living. When you receive a pay rise, move house, buy anew television set or the latest must-have ashion item, youll probable eel happieror a while (although, in act, probably not as happy as you expected you would81). Alltoo soon, however, the novelty wears o and with it any lasting psychological benet.This is not to say that having these things is not desirable, or that acquiring them is

not pleasant. It is just they make very little undamental dierence to the things thatreally matter to our lasting happiness: the company o good riends, the love o closeamily, participating in enjoyable and challenging activities.82 This hedonic treadmill isresponsible or the rising expectations that come with wealth.83 But as the economistJ. K. Galbraith once remarked,

There are many visions o the good society; the treadmill is not one o them.

Meanwhile, the eect o constantly running on the hedonic treadmill may not bebenign. Copious evidence points to a signicant relationship between low levelso satisaction and placing a high personal emphasis on material acquisition andwealth.84 It is possible to see evidence o this relationship in the data rom countriesacross Europe. The European Social Survey (2004) included questions asking people

to rate the importance o certain values in their own lives. Three o the twenty valuesin the survey are traits o a materialistic orientation: valuing visible success, beingadmired, and wealth. National averages or these values correlate negativelywithnational levels o trust that is, in countries where people place more personal valueon wealth and being admired, people are less likely to trust one another (even whenthe eect o individual wealth is actored-out85).

pscgic s

The idea that more consumption leads to greater happiness is a dominant myth inWestern society. We have seen, however, that subjective lie satisaction is highlysensitive to various social and personal variables even when the eects o wealth arecontrolled or. In other words, countries and individuals that consume more are notnecessarily happier indeed it seems to be the case that materialistic consumeristhabits can lead to lower levels o lie satisaction and impact upon social capital andsocial cohesion.

Nevertheless, rom a psychological point o view, losses are elt more acutely thangains.86 Some people ear that being more environmentally conscious and adopting a



sustainable liestyle would mean a decrease in their standard o living. But i there is nostrong relationship between consumption and subjective well-being, then the evidencesuggests that this would not be the case in practice. Ater all, consumption per se is notthe principal object o peoples aspirations, it is a means to an end; namely, well-being.Indeed, people who actively choose to downshit oten do so or precisely the oppositereason to shed the excess baggage o consumerism, increase their well-being andlive richer, more satisying lives.

w t jm tm

There are encouraging signs that a message extolling the merits o reduced consumption

rom a well-being perspective could nd a receptive audience. Evidence suggests that,over the last 10 years, 25 per cent o Britons and aged 3059 made voluntary long-termliestyle changes which resulted in their earning less money, placing less emphasison consumption and having more ree time.87 Contrary to popular belie, these werenot exclusively middle-aged and wealthier people but were spread across age groupsand social classes. The means o liestyle change included cutting back work hours,taking a lower-paid job, stopping work, changing career, and consciously changing theirconsumption patterns. Reasons or making these changes included spending more timewith amily, living a healthier liestyle, seeking more balance or ullment, and leading aless materialistic and more environmentally riendly lie.

However, unilateral action by the individual is not always possible, or sucientlyeective. Deciding to work less when everyone else is working more may hinderones chances o career development. Even an entire nation can nd re-adjustmentto be a challenge, as the case o Frances 35 heures scheme suggests.88 In terms oconsumption habits, sacricing ones car may not be an option where public transportis scarce. It may even seem rather pointless i everyone else is stubbornly carryingon as beore. One company might try to reduce its carbon ootprint by avoiding fyingto meet oreign clients. However, as a recent British Airways advertisement tries tosuggest, they may lose out to another company that continues to fy and thereoremanages to build a better rapport.89

These so-called collective action problems can seem intractable.90 But governmentscan play an important enabling role in co-ordinating societal solutions. The cap-and-trade scheme or personal carbon quotas, or instance, is one suggestion which has

been put orward to deal with the diculties o collective action. However, decisionscannot be entirely top-down. Research on collective action problems suggests thatsolutions work best when citizens eel they have consented to them, or better still, playeda role in their development.91 In other words, jumping the psychological hurdles requiresboth top-down and bottom-up change.

T sts t m cit e

P rcig csmti v sttigs g biig tgts

cb cti

General over-consumption is at the heart o the problem and people in Europeneed to shit to liestyles that require less resources to be consumed. Energy is anarea where decisive government action can make a real dierence. Countries likethe UK need to decentralise their energy production and make ar better use o

their abundant renewable energy resources. Every European government needs toset legally binding targets or reducing carbon dioxide emissions, setting carbonbudgets or 3-5 year periods, to ensure each country does its part in keepingglobal temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius.

P rcig iqitis

Inequalities not just o income, but also o education, health and socialopportunity have a damaging impact on well-being. They deplete thesocial cohesion and social capital required to develop shared solutions to ourenvironmental problems. They help drive the materialistic aspirations o over-consumption. Governments should aim to halt and reverse rises in inequality, andprovide more support or local communities to thrive.

P Stig mig ivs

Governments should take notice o the emerging science o well-being and itsimplications or policy. For example, employers should be encouraged to enabletheir employees to develop ull lives outside the workplace, be fexible and make



time or them to undertake voluntary work. It is time that European governmentsinvested in and implemented national accounts o well-being ensuring that theimpacts o policy decisions on peoples well-being is taken into account.

Detailed proposals can be ound elsewhere, both in our and others materials, that spellout how to reduce consumption o carbon and other resources, and how to designpolicy to reduce inequality and increase well being. These include, or example:

P A Global Maniesto or a happier planet. The 2006 (un)Happy Planet Index(www.neweconomics.org) included a ten point global maniesto or a h

the happy planet index europe 2007

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