Environmental Sustainability Index

The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) is a composite index tracking 21 elements of environmental sustainability covering natural resource endowments, past and present pollution levels, environmental management efforts, contributions to protection of the global commons, and a society's capacity to improve its environmental performance over time. [ cite web
last= Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy
first=
url= http://www.yale.edu/esi/ESI2005_Main_Report.pdf
title= 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index
publisher= Yale University
date=
accessdate= ] [ cite news
last= Peart
first= Karen
url= http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/05-01-26-02.all.html
title= Finland Tops Environmental Scorecard at World Economic Forum in Davos
publisher= Office of Public Affairs at Yale
date= 2005-01-26
accessdate= ]

The ESI was published between 1999 to 2005 by Yale University's Center for Environmental Law and Policy in collaboration with Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), and the World Economic Forum.

The Environmental Sustainability Index was developed to evaluate environmental sustainability relative to the paths of other countries. Due to a shift in focus by the teams developing the ESI, a new index was developed, the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), that uses outcome-oriented indicators, then working as a benchmark index that can be more easily used by policy makers, environmental scientists, advocates and the general public. [cite web |title=2008 Environmental Performance Index Report |url=http://www.yale.edu/epi/files/2008EPI_Text.pdf|accessdate=2008-03-18|author=Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy / Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University See Executive Summary, pp. 32-35 for a detailed comparison between the ESI 2005, the EPI 2006 and the EPI 2008.] The EPI has been published for 2006 [cite web
title=Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index
url=http://www.yale.edu/epi/
accessdate=2007-06-17
author=Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy / Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University] and 2008. [cite web
title=Switzerland Tops 2008 Environmental Scorecard at World Economic Forum
url=http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/08-01-23-04.all.html
accessdate=2008-01-26
author=Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy / Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University]

2005 ESI rankings

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References

ee also

*Environmental Performance Index The ESI became the EPI by the same authors. There are indexes for 2006 and 2008.
*Environmental Vulnerability Index

External links

* [http://www.yale.edu/esi/ Official ESI site]
* [http://www.carboncreditreview.com Sustainability and Carbon Credit News]