The Environmental Sustainability Index, a broad indicator of the state of the environment in 122 countries, ranked Lebanon 109th worldwide and 9th among 12 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. Lebanon received a score of 37.5 points and ranked immediately behind Sudan and China and ahead of Ukraine and Niger on a global basis.
The index evaluated a set of 22 major factors that contribute to environmental sustainability such as air and water quality, reducing air pollution, regulation and management, private sector responsiveness, funding, and overall public health.
The index, developed by the World Economic Forum in cooperation with Columbia and Yale universities, is the first comprehensive scientific assessment of environmental sustainability measured at the cross-national level. It gives the business community a measurement tool to evaluate environmental performance as an integral component of a country’s competitiveness.
The study found that within similar levels of economic performance as measured by GDP per capita, countries exhibit significant variation in their levels of environmental sustainability. It compared a country’s index score with that of its peer group in order to get a useful measure of how effective its environmental efforts are.
Lebanon’s peer group in terms of GDP per capita had an average index score of 45.7. The country’s score of 37.5 came below its peer group average, indicating a lack of environmental effort by the Lebanon’s public and private sectors.
Finland is the top nation in environmental sustainability, while Haiti is the last. — (Lebanon Invest)
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
