What are the sustainable countries we might want to emulate?

[GliderGuider]

Following my post correlating Ecological Footprint and GDP, I started to wonder what countries in the world today combined sustainability with a high quality of life. While there are national indexes like the Human Development Index (HDI) that estimate overall quality of life, they don't incorporate ecological footprint or other sustainability criteria. I decided to see what countries out there today combined both sustainability and a reasonable standard of living.

I chose two widely accepted proxies for sustainability: Ecological Footprint (EF) and Total Fertility Rate (TFR). To be eligible for inclusion in my list, a country had to have an EF less than or equal to 2.3 global hectares per person (the overall biocapacity of the planet is estimated to be around 2.1), and a TFR less than or equal to 2.3 children per woman (the replacement rate is 2.1). I chose both criteria to be a little generous, in order to give nations that were still a bit above the mark a chance at inclusion.

To represent quality of life I chose GDP, life expectancy (LE), infant mortality (IM) and Education Index (EI). GDP had to be greater than $5,000 per person, life expectancy over 70 years, infant mortality less than 21 per 1000 live births, and Education Index greater than 0.83.

Countries had to meet all these thresholds to be included in the final list.

After mapping all these measures and sorting them in Excel, here are the surviving countries (out of 190+ countries in the world):

Country     EF   TFR     GDP      EI    LE      IM
Cuba       2.3   1.49   $9,500  0.976   78.3    5.82
Albania    2.2   2.06   $6,897  0.886   76.4   18.62
China      1.8   1.73   $5,970  0.849   73     20.25
Colombia   1.9   2.22   $8,229  0.875   72.9   18.9
Mauritius  2.3   1.86  $12,011  0.836   72.8   12.2
Armenia    1.6   1.39   $5,792  0.903   72     20.21
Thailand   1.7   1.85   $8,239  0.886   70.6   17.63

It looks like the world has a lot to learn from Cuba.

[virgogal]

1. I think I'll tough it out right here,thanks.

[gimama]

2. Island of Tanna (Pacific)

ck out "Meet the Natives" on the Travel Channel.. these Guys truly have their priorities right..
in most cases, I think.

[yodoobo]

3. Cuba eh?

If Cuba is who we need to emulate, I think I'll pass thanks.

[Goldstein1984]

5. If things keep going as well as they are here, we may be...

emulating them involuntarily before long.

I was sitting in a coffee shop recently, and I listened to two perfectly ordinary people discussing "the coming revolution." I joined their conversation, and I learned they were progressive liberals who had recently checked out of the Democratic Party because it wasn't Left enough for them. Since I did the same thing ten years ago, I welcomed them to the club. More and more people, I think, are wondering about quality of life.

As the analysis in this OP shows, our ideas about how good things are here might be based on some incorrect metrics.

[Goldstein1984]

4. Nice analysis

My wife and I plan to check out Cuba soon. Just for a visit.

We're looking for a place to settle in when I retire and exit the system.

Cuba is in the general direction we are considering.

[IrateCitizen]

6. It's an example of the "enlightened despot" in real time

Look, I'm not going to hold Castro up as some kind of selfless saint, but neither is he the devil incarnate. One thing about him is that he has extensively traveled throughout the country and tried to learn it inside and out in order to make the final decision of what he believed was best for Cuba. During the 1960s and 1970s, for instance, it was difficult to find people who had never actually seen Castro before in the flesh, he traveled so extensively. Although he has taken some draconian measures in order to secure his power in Cuba, it does not seem as if he does so for his own personal enrichment -- he has lived a spartan existence compared to many other strongmen of the developing world, many of whom the United States enthusiastically supported throughout the years.

When Cuba underwent their "special period" during the 1990s -- the term used to describe the nearly instant 80% decline in their oil imports after the demise of the Soviet Union -- they had to make drastic, systemic changes in order to survive. One of the areas in which these changes needed to be made was in the agricultural sector.

Within a short period of time, Cuba transitioned from producing only sugar for export to producing the food they needed to survive. Already built into the Cuban system were some crucial advantages -- sincere commitment to universal education and health care chief among them. The state moved quickly to redirect the university system toward producing people educated in the agricultural sciences. As a result, in spite of a steep plunge in oil available for agriculture, Cuba only suffered malnutrition -- not mass starvation.

Of course, all of this was made possible because Cuba was under authoritarian control, and in this instance the despot (Castro) proved to be incredibly forward-looking in charting Cuba's course through this difficult time. By contrast, try and imagine the circus that is Washington D.C. dealing with an instant plunge in our oil imports on the order of 12 million barrels a day out of the 20 million we are accustomed to.

I shudder at what would become of many areas of the American landscape under similar circumstances.

[azul]

7. Impressive work.

I'm wondering if there is a parameter that measures respectfulness. Like percentage of population without a conscience or xenophobic index or laws that give precedence to living things over fictitious business interests. Peace potential?

Guess I dream of emigrating to Bhutan, ...if only they had surf.

[amerikat]

8. My fav is Samso Island........watch the video.........

http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/12/07/island-in-denmark-produces-more-energy-than-it-consumes/8768/

It's important because of the size of the island and it's small population
it only took ten years to accomplish.

[kestrel91316]

9. Kestrelland has a very low footprint, but only one citizen. Me.

[pscot]

10. How areyou fixed for beachfront?

B-)

[kestrel91316]

11. 10 miles away. But there's a way to get there on the bus if you have plenty of time.....

[paulsby]

12. how many life changing innovations come out of countries like cuba?

it's easy to have such a low 'footprint' when you don't PRODUCE anything, don't innovate anything, and also don't even get me started on some of those stats, like how cuba fudges infant mortality rates/.

what the world has to learn from cuba could fit in a thimble.

and there would be space left over

[GliderGuider]

13. For those allergic to Castro, there's always Colombia... nt

[GliderGuider]

14. I don't think China really belongs on that list

The Ecological Footprint concept doesn't seem to capture all the pollution and other ecological damage that's happening there.

[eridani]

15. If you are considering political subunits of larger states--

--I'd suggest Kerala, India.

[eridani]

16. Come to think of it--

--too bad that regions in the larger countries don't have separate evaluations. Guess you have to work with the stats that you can get.

[GliderGuider]

17. I agree about Kerala. It's a remarkable state.

Their life expectancy, infant mortality and education index all have more in common with those of a western nation than the rest of India. The Gross State Domestic Product is only about $250, though.

Here's how Kerala stacks up against the other nations I mentioned:

Country     EF   TFR     GDP      EI    LE      IM
Cuba       2.3   1.49   $9,500  0.976   78.3    5.82
Albania    2.2   2.06   $6,897  0.886   76.4   18.62
China      1.8   1.73   $5,970  0.849   73     20.25
Colombia   1.9   2.22   $8,229  0.875   72.9   18.9
Mauritius  2.3   1.86  $12,011  0.836   72.8   12.2
Armenia    1.6   1.39   $5,792  0.903   72     20.21
Thailand   1.7   1.85   $8,239  0.886   70.6   17.63

Kerala     0.8   1.70     $250 ~0.7??   73.4   15.3

So, Kerala is a sustainable state with very good health care indicators, reasonable education quality, but low GDP (actually GSDP, or Gross State Domestic Product). I understand that a significant amount of Kerala's money come from expat remittances, but I don't know how that's factored into the GSDP numbers.

On edit: Kerala also confirms the general observation I made in my initial post on EF and GDP, that sustainable EF numbers correlate well to low GDP.

[TxRider]

18. Dropping US per capita GDP

From 45,000 to 9,500 isn't going to go over very well with very many people.

[GliderGuider]

19. I agree. That's why the world is hooped. nt