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Start calculating your own Sustainability Score
Introduction
Torfaen Council is committed to making a valuable contribution towards the objectives of sustainable development through its activities and through working with others.
Changing by Degrees, Torfaen's sustainability motto shows how, by making minor adjustments to the way people live, everyone can help reduce consumption of the earth's resources and live healthier, happier lives.
Torfaen Sustainability Index has been developed with nef (the new economics foundation), based on work carried out with Caerphilly County Borough Council.
The index will show you:
- How sustainable you are
- How happy and healthy you are
- How much of the Earth's resources you use
| Your sustainability Score = | Life expectancy X Life satisfaction |
| Ecological Footprint |
By the term 'Ecological Footprint' we mean the amount of productive land and sea that is required to support all of the resources we use in our lives each day. This includes water, food, energy & raw materials. It also includes the emissions generated from the energy sources that we burn and the area of the land required to store the waste we generate. Ecological footprint is measured in global hectares (gHa). Using the Torfaen Sustainability Index you can calculate your own personal ecological footprint.
Torfaen currently has an ecological footprint of 5.05 global hectares per person. If everyone in the world lived as we do in Torfaen then we would need 2.8 planets to support us all.
The questions on the following pages will ask you about where you live, your health, lifestyle, and how you feel about life. The answers you give are used to calculate your own personal score on our sustainability index.
How happy are you... and at what price to the environment?! Start the survey to find out!!
Please note that the survey is completely anonymous - no information is collected which can identify you personally.
How will you measure up?
| Country | Life Expectancy | Life Satisfaction (out of 10) | Ecological footprint (global hectares) | Sustainability score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costa Rica | 78.2 | 7.5 | 2.1 | 66.0 |
| China | 71.6 | 6.3 | 1.5 | 56.0 |
| Germany | 78.7 | 7.2 | 4.8 | 43.8 |
| Torfaen | 78.7 | 7.1 | 5.1 | 41.2 |
| UK | 78.7 | 7.1 | 5.3 | 40.1 |
| USA | 77.4 | 7.4 | 9.5 | 28.8 |
| Zimbabwe | 36.9 | 3.3 | 1.0 | 16.6 |
Figures for UK and Torfaen come from the following sources: Life satisfaction is based on figure for UK in the first Happy Planet Index. Life expectancy updated using Office of National Statistics estimates for the years 2003 to 2005. Ecological footprint from Stockholm Environment Institute estimates calculated in 2008 for 2004. Note that these figures may differ from older or more recent estimates.
Data for other countries from first Happy Planet Index report.
Note that the new Happy Planet Index 2.0 report features updated figures which are not directly comparable with those used on this website.
Disclaimer
Torfaen County Borough Council seeks to ensure that information contained in these pages is accurate. However, no liability, or responsibility is accepted arising from reliance upon the information contained in these web pages or any other information accessed via this site or via links on this site to external sites. Torfaen County Borough Council holds and processes personal information in accordance with all current data protection legislation.
