Lux second greenest country in world: index

Thanks to low pollutant emissions, good water management and little pollution from heavy metals, Luxembourg has reached second place in a Yale University ranking of the countries most able to meet environmental challenges.

Yale University has published its Environmental Performance Index 2020 (EPI), giving Luxembourg a score of 82.3 out of 100.

The EPI uses 32 performance indicators across 11 categories, including air quality, water resources, waste management, etc., and is supposed to provide a measure at the national level of the degree of proximity of countries in terms of policy objectives and environmental issues.

With an index of 82.3 (0 being the lowest, 100 the best possible score), Luxembourg comes in second–an increase of 11.6 points in 10 years.

The grand duchy is at the top ranks in terms of polluting emissions, with a score of 100. It also obtains good results for its water resources (sixth position, at 98.5), drinking water purification (98.6, ninth place) and heavy metal pollution (96.1, seventh place). The country, however, needs to improve on ecosystem management, where it ranks 90th with a score of only 34.3. The same goes for agriculture–in 73rd place–with a score of 42.2.

The researchers analysed 180 countries’ performances. First place went to Denmark, which scored 82.5. France comes 5th at 80/100, Germany 10th with 77.2/100 and Belgium 15th at 73.3/100.