Presentation on the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), focusing on Latvia's performance on climate change.

1. The Environmental Performance
Index (EPI):
Latvia in Perspective
Angel Hsu
Project Director
2012 Environmental Performance Index
May 26, 2011

2. Yale Center for
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY
• Established in 1994, the Yale Center for
Environmental Law and Policy is a joint
initiative between the Yale Law School and
the Yale School of Forestry and
Environmental Studies.
• The Center is a hybrid between a think tank
and a research institution, as each of its
initiatives is aimed at bringing academic
rigor to real-world policymaking.

3. Partners

4. Current Policy Stalemate
• Hard to set goals when metrics aren’t
available
• Hard to mobilize support for measurement in
the absence of policy goals
• MDGs helped reinvigorate many
socioeconomic measurement efforts
– did not have same effect on the environment
4

5. Clear Sustainability Targets Remain
Elusive
• Human-oriented indicators • Ecosystem-oriented
tend to be linked to clear targets hard to find
targets – Regional ozone
– Mortality – Nitrogen loading
– Drinking Water – Water consumption
– Sanitation – Wilderness Protection
– Urban Particulates – Overfishing
– Exception: Indoor Air Pollution
Problems that manifest themselves over complicated
transnational, multi-scale, coupled-system dynamics. The policy
debates need help!

6. ESI and EPI
• Born out of a recognition that environmental
policy-making needs to be more
– Data-driven
– Science-based
– Analytically rigorous
• “What gets measured matters”
• Need a revolution in policymaking
– Good data, indicators, and metrics provide foundation
– Underpinning for analysis – scientific, statistical,
benefit-cost, and economic

7. History of the EPI
ESI: Environmental Sustainability
Index
• Pilot 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2005
versions
• http://www.yale.edu/esi
EPI: Environmental Performance Index
• Pilot 2008 version
• http://epi.yale.edu:2008
• 2010 version
• http://epi.yale.edu
7

8. The EPI Model
Premise 1: Environmental conditions matter to
people.
Premise 2: Performance assessment should be
based on absolute targets.
EPI measures a country’s performance as the
distance to target for 25 environmental
outcomes in 10 policy categories.

9. EPI aims
• Make environmental decision-making more data-
driven and empirical
• Establish context for evaluating policy results
• Facilitate benchmarking of performance
• Identify leaders, laggards, and best practices
• Provide counterpoint to GDP growth and
competitiveness rankings
• Intended to stimulate debate about appropriate
metrics and methodologies for evaluating
environmental performance (work in progress)

10. DSPIR Framework
DPSIR Framework
Responses
e.g. Regulations, Taxes,
Investments
Drivers
e.g. Electricity production,
Transportation
Impacts
e.g. Adverse human health
effects, lowered crop yields
Pressures
e.g. CO2 emissions, waste
byproducts
States
e.g. Water or soil quality

12. Data Gaps
• Toxic chemical exposures
• Heavy metals (lead, cadmium, mercury) exposure
• Ambient air quality concentrations
• Municipal and toxic waste management
• Nuclear safety
• Pesticide safety
• Wetlands loss
• Species loss
• Freshwater ecosystems health
• Agricultural soil quality and erosion
• Comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions

13. Methodology
• Adjust direction
• Standardize using maximum possible range
or observed range
• Calculate distance to target
• Average indicators for policy area indices
• Average policy area indices

14. Proximity to Target
International Target
range
Distance
to target
Worse Better
performance performance

15. Performance Indicator
(international range) – (distance to target)
x 100
(international range)

16. Policy Targets
• (1) treaties or other internationally agreed
upon goals;
• (2) standards set by international
organizations;
• (3) leading national regulatory requirements;
• (4) expert judgment based on prevailing
scientific consensus.

17. Data Sources
• official statistics that are measured and
formally reported by governments to
international organizations (but which are not
independently verified)
• modeled data
• observations from monitoring stations

18. A Note on Aggregation
EPI is composite index with 2 steps of
aggregation:
EPI
Weighting
Policy
Area
Weighting
Indicator

19. Cross-Country Indicator
Analysis
• Identify leaders and laggards
• Investigate policy options through
comparative analysis (e.g., peer groups)
– May include cost/benefit evaluations
• Set national policy targets
• Track progress over time

20. 2010 EPI

21. EPI and Income

22. EPI 2008
Overall ranking: 8
88.8
95.2
82.4
86.9
98
86
42.4
99.5
99.5
86.3
85.7
100
75
83

23. Latvia’s Performance in 2010
EPI, 2010
Overall ranking: 21

24. Latvia’s Performance in 2010
EPI, 2010
Drop from 86.9 to 55.6

25. 9.
3
18 - 18
.1 .0
26 - 26
.8 .7
35 - 35
.5 .4
44 - 44
.2 .1
52 - 52
.9 .8
61 - 61
.6 .5
70 - 70
.3 .2
79 - 78
.0 .9
Climate Change, equidistant intervals
87 - 87
.8 .7
-9
6.
4
Climate Change Performance
EPI, 2010

26. Climate Change Indicators
Indicator Weighting Weighting Target 2008 Target 2010
(2008) (2010)
Greenhouse 8.333
12.5 2.24 Mt CO2 eq. 2.5 Mt CO2 eq. (Estimated value
gas emissions (Estimated value associated with 50% reduction in
per capita associated with 50% global GHG emissions by 2050,
reduction in global GHG against 1990 levels)
(including emissions by 2050, against
land use 1990 levels)
emissions)
CO2 8.333
6.3 0 g CO2 per kWh 0 g CO2 per kWh
emissions per
electricity
generation
Industrial 8.333
6.3 85 tons of CO2 per $1000 36.3 tons of CO2 per $mill (USD,
greenhouse (USD, 2005, PPP) of 2005, PPP) of industrial GDP
gas emissions industrial GDP (Estimated (Estimated value associated with
value associated with 50% 50% reduction in global GHG
intensity
reduction in global GHG emissions by 2050, against 1990
emissions by 2050, against levels)
1990 levels)

27. 2008 vs. 2010
Results are not comparable!
Indicator Score Score Raw value Raw
2008 2010 (2008) value(201
0)
GHG 93.4 54.6 5.7 10.2
emissions
per capita
CO2 82.5 38.2 162 164.05
emissions/
electricity
generation
Industrial 84.8 74.7 1.9 tons per 61.8 tons
CO2 $1,000 per $mil
emissions USD USD
intensity
For 2008 EPI, Population 2,307,000 (2005) and GDP per capita: $13,724.5 USD
For 2010 EPI, Population 2,276,100 (2007) and GDP per capita $16,268.67 USD

28. Example: Calculation of GHG
per capita in 2010 EPI
1) Raw emissions data, exc. land-use change
Country 2000 2005
Latvia 10.10 10.90
2) Imputation - missing land-use data
12.50 for 2000-2005
3) Raw population data
Country 2000 2005
Latvia 2,372,000 2,300,500
Data from
4) Calculation of per capita GHG emissions CAIT,
(2009),
Country 2000 2005
Houghton
Latvia 9.5 10.2 (2005), IEA

29. CAIT, 2011

30. Sectoral breakdown
CAIT, 2011

31. Recommendations
• Comprehensive, integrated climate strategy
needed
- Highlight is Forestry sector
• Transport sector has highest potential for
improvements.
- Highest average emissions for new cars in the
EU
- Tax rates for passenger vehicles based on
emissions
- Public transport

32. Recommendations
• Industrial sector could benefit from support for
renewables
• Building sector
- Policies to require use of renewable sources for
heat and electricity
• Agriculture and land-use emissions high
- Introduce policies to reduce methane emissions
associated with livestock

33. Sustainable Development Recommendations using EPI
• Prioritize which areas are lagging behind others through
data-driven decision-making
– “Latvia EPI”
– Trend analysis of indicators
• Need a new greener model of development
• Use various forums (govt, NGO, academia, business) to
test best practices for engagement and opportunity
• Engage in international or regional cooperation for climate
and other transboundary issues

34. EPI Experience - Conclusions
• EPI permits performance analysis independent of
that of other countries
• Facilitates analysis on different levels of aggregation
and units
– Indicator, policy area, global index level
– Within and across countries
– At single time point and across time (limited)
– Comparisons with other indices and performance
benchmarks

35. EPI Experience - Conclusions
• Choice of targets shapes policy conclusions
– In some cases, specification of targets difficult or
country-specific
– Long-term environmental processes better
measured through progress targets than through
sustainability targets
– Policy conclusions depend also on who is
responsible for environmental pressures (e.g.,
government, business, individual)

36. EPI Experience - Conclusions
• Findings indicate environmental performance is
linked to income, good governance, and
competitiveness
– Supports ESI results
– Significance of governance and competitiveness
disappears when accounting for GDP/cap
• Open issues:
– Testing/refining of EPI model (robustness, choice of
indicators and targets, aggregation, and imputation)
– Cause-effect relationships of good environmental
performance (looking beyond the income link)
– Translation of results into better policies

37. 2012 EPI Plans
• Component I: ‘Core EPI’
– Criteria for more robust indicators
– Change Index
• Component II: Blueprint for air quality
measurement
– Satellite data, innovative measurement
methods
• Component III: Global Case studies
– Feature Latvia

38. Environmental Performance
Indicators in Practice Prize
(EPIPP)
• Biennial prize for noteworthy applications of
environmental performance indicators to
improve environmental governance.
• Cash prize, trip to WEF meeting in Davos,
outreach/promotion

39. Thank you!
Angel Hsu
Phd candidate, Yale University
Project Director, 2012 Environmental
Performance Index
angel.hsu@yale.edu
http://epi.yale.edu