TEHRAN – Iran has improved 13 spots in the 2020 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), moving up to 67th place as compared to 80th two years ago.

The ranking was released in an online ceremony on Friday concurrent with the World Environment Day.

The 2020 EPI provides a data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world. Using 32 performance indicators across 11 issue categories, namely, air quality, sanitation, and drinking water, heavy metals, waste management, biodiversity, ecosystem services, fisheries, climate change, pollution emissions, agriculture, and water resources.
The EPI ranks 180 countries on environmental health and ecosystem vitality. These indicators provide a gauge at a national scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy targets. 

EPI indicators provide a way to spot problems, set targets, track trends, understand outcomes, and identify best policy practices. Overall EPI rankings indicate which countries are best addressing the environmental challenges that every nation faces. 

Currently, the criterion for comparing the development of countries is the condition of the environment is determined by the World Economic Forum (Davos) every two years in collaboration with Yale University and Columbia University. 

Notably, the 2020 rankings include for the first time a waste management metric and a pilot indicator on CO2 emissions from land cover change.

 World Environment Day

World Environment Day, hosted by Colombia this 2020, is the most renowned day for environmental action. Since 1974, it has been celebrated every year on 5 June, engaging governments, businesses, celebrities, and citizens to focus their efforts on a pressing environmental issue.

This year, the theme was biodiversity – a concern that is both urgent and existential. Recent events, from bushfires in Brazil, the United States, and Australia to locust infestations across East Africa – and now, a global disease pandemic – demonstrate the interdependence of humans and the webs of life, in which they exist.

World Environment Day has grown to become a global platform for public outreach, with participation from over 143 countries annually.

FB/MG