So, what's your Greendex?

With Green Revolution on the way.....so, the question I would like to ask is what's your Greendex?

Greendex is a latest term coined by National Geographic equivalent to finding out the environmental impact of one's life style. However, their research went beyond just stereotypical carbon-foot print rating for a country, it rank individuals and looked at each country as a whole.

As NG put it, "Unlike other measures that rank countries according to the environmental performance of their governments, companies and other factors, the Greendex is the first to rank the performance of individual consumers, rather than countries as a whole."

The results were quiet surprising but at the same time easy to digest.



Among the countries ranked for Greendex, India and Brazil topped the charts...

Here's what i think --
With significant population crammed in relatively smaller area (high population density), booming economies and thus fight for resources has turned at least the individual citizens some of these developing countries, more environmentally conscious than conventional wisdom might suggest.

It would seem - if one is competing with billion odd people for the limited number of opportunities - everyday would be a quest of survival by using the minimal possible resources and maximizing the utilization and gains....

I am running at 55 Greendex right now and looking to 'green-it-up' a bit more with a road-bike soon. What's your Greendex? Find out for your self by using the Greendex Calculator.

A few excerpts from the NG article --

"Consumers surveyed in Brazil earned higher Greendex scores than all others for housing. This is driven by small residence size as measured by number of rooms per household (96% have four rooms or fewer in their homes), by far the least use of home heating (found in only 9% of homes, a need negated mostly by climate), relatively widespread use of on-demand water heaters (rather than tank heaters), and wide penetration of renewable electricity (generated from biofuels/biomass in this case). Brazilian consumers overwhelmingly wash laundry in cold water, and they are far above average on minimizing their use of fresh water, both of which contribute to their stronger performance.

Their transportation habits earn Brazilian consumers second place on this sub-index. They are much more likely than most others to walk, bike, take public transportation, own a fuel-efficient vehicle and drive compact cars.

On the other side of the globe, Indian consumers tied with those in Brazil for the top rank on this 14-country index, in part because of their relatively lower environmental impact from housing and above-average performance on transportation and food.

Indian (and Chinese) consumers are more likely than other respondents to say they have installed solar panels at their residence to heat water (12%); six in 10 (58%) use an on-demand electrical water heater, by far the highest among consumers surveyed.

In terms of transportation, Indian consumers also ranked near the top. A third (33%) —- the second highest on this survey — say they live close to the places they need to go most days in order to reduce their impact on the environment. They are by far the most likely to own motorcycles or scooters instead of a car, and among the most likely to take public transportation (35% daily) and to drive a compact car rather than a larger vehicle. As a reflection of rapid economic growth and increasing transportation needs in India, consumers in this country are among the most likely to say that last year they used public transportation and bicycles more often than in the year prior, but were also more likely to have increased their frequency of driving alone and flying.

On the food sub-index, Indian consumers outperformed those in the other countries surveyed by a considerable margin, driven primarily by their avoidance of meats: 72% never eat beef and 76% never eat pork. In addition, 84% ate locally grown food at least weekly, among the highest recorded in the survey.

On goods, Indian consumers do better than most, with widespread preference for green products and ownership of relatively few appliances and electronic devices. Four in 10 prefer to repair things rather than replace them, the highest (on par with Hungarians) in the survey. However, only 17% always recycle, the lowest (also on par with Hungarian consumers), likely due to high levels of reuse.

Attitudinally, many Indian consumers — higher than the 14-country average —- are very concerned about environmental problems (42% strongly agree), feel these problems negatively impact their health (35%), feel guilty about their own environmental impact (22%), and say they are currently working very hard to reduce that impact (27%). Three of these last four statements were found to be drivers of Greendex scores, meaning the more likely consumers are to agree with these statements, the more likely they are to be behaving in a more environmentally sustainable way."