The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a method of quantifying and numerically marking the environmental performance of a state's policies, highlighting the degradation of the planet's life-supporting systems on which humanity depends. A world economy that continues to rely heavily on fossil fuels translates into ongoing air and water pollution, acidification of the oceans, and rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These changes threaten the survival of species already suffering from widespread habitat loss, pushing them closer to extinction. Recent analyses show that humanity has already transgressed six out of nine critical planetary boundaries that define Earth's safe operating space — and is close to crossing a seventh.
The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) was started in 2002 by World Economic Forum in association with the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (Yale University) and Center for International Earth Science Information Network Earth Institute (Columbia University). The biennial EPI report harnesses the latest data sets, science, and technology to provide the most comprehensive assessment of the state of sustainability around the world. In total, the 2024Â EPI report incorporates 58Â indicators to rank 180Â countries on their progress at mitigating climate change, safeguarding ecosystem vitality, and promoting environmental health. This broad set of metrics is a powerful tool to track progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the climate mitigation targets in the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement, and the biodiversity protection goals in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.