{"id":718458,"date":"2026-07-30T04:20:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T04:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/718458\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T04:20:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T04:20:52","slug":"youll-never-guess-which-country-is-leading-the-world-on-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/718458\/","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019ll never guess which country is leading the world on sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Estonia is the world\u2019s most sustainable nation, according to the latest version of the Environmental Performance Index<\/a> (EPI) \u2013 a biennial assessment of 177 countries\u2019 environmental credentials by Columbia and Yale universities.<\/p>\n

The Baltic state rose to the top of the global rankings after having simultaneously expanded its renewable energy generation capacity and cut its carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

Estonia was closely followed by Luxembourg and the United Kingdom in the rankings, which were ranked second and third respectively.<\/p>\n

Though some nations\u2019 rankings have improved since the last EPI roundup, the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, Prof Dan Esty<\/a>, cautioned world leaders against becoming complacent in tackling carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cArtificial intelligence<\/a> and other new technologies are giving us an ever more accurate understanding of the state of the world\u2019s environmental progress, but the picture they paint should give us pause,\u201d said Esty.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the most high-performing countries are failing to fully tackle some of the planet\u2019s most critical sustainability challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The EPI scored countries against 47 environmental metrics across 12 issue categories, including ecosystem vitality, climate change<\/a> and air quality.<\/p>\n

European countries dominated this year\u2019s league table, occupying the first 15 places. The United States, meanwhile, earned a respectable 27th place.<\/p>\n

\"TallinnEstonia is in the northeast of Europe, between Finland, Russia and Latvia, with a very small population of fewer than 1.4 million people – Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

Estonia earned its top spot owing to its retirement of old oil shale power generators in 2019. That move slashed its overall emissions by 40 per cent \u2013 but the list\u2019s author, Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy research director Dr Zach Wendling<\/a>, warned that such gains could only occur once.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always encourage countries to start with the low-hanging fruit, but that was like an apple the size of a beach ball,\u201d said<\/a> Wendling. \u201cIf we really want to drive to net zero, then it\u2019s going to take continued effort, bolder strategies, and more ambitious plans for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bangladesh, India, Laos and Vietnam rounded out the bottom of the list, while China occupied 129th place thanks to its continued reliance on coal for over half its energy requirements.<\/p>\n

But not everyone is convinced by the EPI\u2019s rationale for its rankings. Dr Matt Winning<\/a> \u2013 Economics of Sustainability lecturer at University College London \u2013 who was not involved with this study \u2013 said that the scheme\u2019s scoring system hid the interconnectedness of each sustainability metric.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo single country can insulate itself from the impacts of global issues like climate and biodiversity loss,\u201d said Winning. \u201cTherefore, global progress is far more important than country rankings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are the top 10 countries on the list:<\/p>\n

Estonia
\nLuxembourg
\nUnited Kingdom
\nFinland
\nThe Netherlands
\nGermany
\nFrance
\nNorway
\nSweden
\nAustria<\/p>\n

And here are the 10 worst-performing countries:<\/p>\n

Laos
\nIndia
\nBangladesh
\nMali
\nVietnam
\nBurundi
\nMaldives
\nLiberia
\nMauritania
\nIndonesia<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Estonia is the world\u2019s most sustainable nation, according to the latest version of the Environmental Performance Index (EPI)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-718458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}