Iceland second best in world on environmental issues
Photo: Iceland Monitor/Ómar Óskarsson
Iceland is the world’s second most highly performing country in environmental issues, according to the 2016 Environmental Performance Index (EPI ).
Complied by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, the EPI “ranks countries’ performance on high-priority environmental issues […]. […] EPI indicators measure country proximity to meeting internationally established targets or, in the absence of agreed targets, how nations compare to one another.”
Iceland scores 90.51 out of a possible 100, beaten narrowly into second place by Finland, with 90.68. All of the countries in the Top 10 are European countries.
Photo: Iceland Monitor/Rax
The categories examined are Health Impacts, Air Quality, Water and Sanitation, Water Resources, Agriculture, Forests, Fisheries, Biodiversity and Habitat, and Climate and Energy.
Iceland scores almost 100% as regards Health Impacts (risk of water and air pollution to human health) and Water and Sanitation (sanitation and drinking water quality).
One of the categories in which Finland outperforms Iceland is Biodiversity and Habitat (terrestrial protected areas, marine protected areas, species protection).
