Calculating the HPI

The HPI reflects the average years of happy life produced by a given society, nation or group of nations, per unit of planetary resources consumed. Put another way, it represents the efficiency with which countries convert the earth’s finite resources into well-being experienced by their citizens.

The Global HPI incorporates three separate indicators: ecological footprint, life-satisfaction and life expectancy.

Conceptually the HPI is straightforward. It is an efficiency measure: well-being delivered per unit of environmental impact. However, a couple of statistical adjustments are made to ensure that no single component dominates the overall indicator:

(For details of how α and β are calculated, see the appendix in the Happy Planet Index 2.0 report)

For the European HPI, carbon footprint is used as the measure of resource use, but derives from an equation of the same form.

Find about more about how each of the indicators which make up the global HPI are calculated, and about the calculations for the European HPI.