Graduate Environmental Program

A composite ’sustainability index’, based on the original work of the Bruntland Commission but updated and extended, has been developed using 22 main indicators. The SSI (Sustainable Society Index) assigns scores to nation states. The methodology and tables, developed by two analysts in the Netherlands, may be found here and are discussed in the online Enyclopaedia of Earth, here. Sweden is top-ranked by the SSI as the most sustainable nation, followed by Switzerland, Finland, Norway, and Austria (New Zealand is 9th). Australia performs pretty poorly at 64/151 and the USA is lower at 66/151. The bottom four are oil-rich states: Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkmenistan (151/151).