A carbon-lite life is a happier life

New research shows Britain is worse at translating its use of natural resources into long and happy lives for its people than two-thirds of its European counterparts. It also shows we are burning up more fossil fuels for less "wellbeing" than we did 40 years ago.

The New Economics Foundation (nef) last week published a Happy Planet Index that ranks European countries according to a combination of life expectancy, life satisfaction and carbon footprint. It shows no link between the amount of resources a country consumes per head and the wellbeing of its population.

In the report Britain lies 21st out of 30 countries on nef's measure, because it has one of the highest per capita carbon footprints, behind only Luxembourg, Estonia and Finland, but only mid-table scores for both life expectancy and satisfaction. Iceland tops the Happy Planet index for Europe thanks to abundant renewable natural resources and high-ranking scores on the two happiness measures. Northern European countries such as Denmark and Sweden are highly efficient at treading lightly but happily on Earth.

"These findings question what the economy is there for. What is the point if we burn vast quantities of fossil fuels to make, buy and consume ever more stuff, without noticeably benefiting our wellbeing?"
Andrew Simms, NEF's policy director

If everyone in the world consumed at the same rate as Britain today, it would take about three planets like Earth to give the necessary resources. Yet I was interested to read that almost a third of respondents to a recent BBC poll said they would prefer to live in the 1960s than today.

As nef shows in their look at 34,000 Europeans a sense of wellbeing was determined largely by income equality, trust within the population and voluntary and political engagement. The report called for a three-pronged attack to make Europe deliver a better, carbon efficient, quality of life.

Governments should set legally binding targets for carbon reduction in each country to meet the EU's aim of limiting global temperature rises to below 2C above pre-industrial level. Policymakers should also work to reverse growing inequality in income, education, health and social opportunity. And employers must be encouraged to promote flexible working and allow staff to develop full lives outside the workplace, the study urged. It concluded: "Rather than turn the clock back, we need to look to a post-consumption era that is aware of the false promise of materialism and utilises wealth and technology to deliver more efficiency, rather than just more."

"Countries like Iceland, the highest scoring nation on our Index clearly show that happiness doesn't have to cost the earth. Iceland's combination of strong social policies and extensive use of renewable energy demonstrate that living within our environmental means doesn't mean sacrificing human well-being - in fact, it could even make us happier. By learning from the differences between European countries and by copying the best practices, we believe it will be possible to both greatly reduce our carbon footprint, and increase our well-being."
Nic Marks, founder of nef's Centre for well-being

"Our economy has been binge-drinking fossil fuels for decades. But not only has this been wrecking the environment we all depend on, it's not been making us any happier either. Gordon Brown needs to set the UK in a new direction - where the aim of Government is to improve the quality of people's lives, without costing the earth. This means an explicit focus on the type of economy we have, not just its size - we need low-carbon and high-happiness as goals for our society, not just ramped-up GDP."
Simon Bullock, economy campaigner for Friends of the Earth

Let us hope that these findings undermine fears that reducing carbon emissions in the battle against global warming will destroy hard-won gains in the developed world's quality of life since the Second World War. See nef report here