World’s Greenest Countries 2022 A Study by GreenMatch

Being “green” is a reflection of how much a country cares about preserving and restoring the natural environment and its resources as well as the health of its citizens.

GreenMatch has conducted a comprehensive study analysing the most and least green countries in the world. We combined and compared 4 different reports namely the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) from Yale University, a report from EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), Green Future Index (GFI) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the IQ Air information platform.

Coming in at first place is Sweden. Sweden ranks highly across the studies, coming in 5th place on the EPI, 9th for the GFI, and 4th for the lowest annual average PM2.5 concentration at 6.6 μg/m³. Some of Sweden’s highlights are that it has a perfect score in the EPI for protecting marine ecosystems and it ranks second in the GFI’s CO2 emissions growth in transport sector indicator.

We also compared these results with people’s perception of the greenest countries. A survey conducted by InterNations in 2020 found similar results. They surveyed 15,000 expats who represented 173 nationalities and lived in 181 countries or territories. Interestingly enough, people’s perceptions of how environmentally friendly and sustainable various countries are is generally in agreement with our final ranking.

GreenMatch has been helping more than 100,000 UK homeowners with getting the best prices on heat pumps, solar panels and other green energy solutions. GreenMatch is owned by Leads.io and was founded in 2014 with a vision about creating a more sustainable and transparent market for the consumers.