Summary

Description

The Pilot 2002 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is designed to measure current environmental status at the national scale. The Pilot 2002 EPI derives from a collection of data sets aggregated into four core indicators that gauge air and water quality, greenhouse emissions, and land protection. These indicators provide measures of both current performance and rates of change. The Pilot 2002 EPI covers 23 countries for which adequate time series data were available. The targeted, results-oriented EPI provides a valuable counterpoint to the Environmental Sustainability Index, which covers a much broader range of conditions aimed at measuring long-term environmental prospects. The Pilot 2002 EPI is the result of collaboration among the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Leaders for Tomorrow Environment Task Force, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy (YCELP), and the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). (Suggested Usage: The Pilot 2002 EPI enables benchmarking of progress toward meeting immediate policy objectives, facilitates judgments about environmental performance, and can be used to identify important differences in performance that may warrant intervention of investigation.)