Eco-conscious countries
In recent years, many of us have become increasingly aware of the impact we have on the environment, deciding to make eco-conscious choices where we can. Individuals, companies and governments all over the world are doing what they can to improve their practices surrounding our relationship with the world we live in, so we wondered which countries are most eco-conscious and which are the greenest countries to live in.
We looked at a range of factors, including the volume of Google searches for terms related to green energy and renewable power, as well as how green the country currently is, based on factors such as air quality, quality of green spaces and garbage disposal satisfaction.
Taking into consideration all of these factors, we were able to rank 75 countries to find out which are the most eco-conscious.
The top 10 eco-conscious countries
These are the countries that ranked the highest when we took into consideration monthly searches, air quality, garbage disposal satisfaction, cleanliness and tidiness, and the quality of green spaces and parks.
The top 10 countries for air quality
This factor is based on user-submitted data where a score out of 100 is given and an average taken of all user submissions.
The cleanest countries
These are the countries where residents were most satisfied with the cleanliness and tidiness of the area.
The top 10 countries for green spaces
If you’re looking for the best places to visit for green spaces and parks, these are the top 10 as decided by user-submitted data.
Which countries are searching most for eco-related terms?
These are the countries which had the highest number of monthly searches for terms such as ‘green energy’, ‘sustainable living’ and ‘renewable energy’.
Brought to you by our energy comparison experts.
Methodology
In order to find the number of monthly searches, we compiled a list of 12 search terms related to the phrase ‘green energy’. We then used monthly Google search volume for each of these phrases in every country where search data is available. This data was correct at 9th June 2020.
This gave us a total number of monthly searches, adding all the numbers for each country. We were then able to compare this to the 2020 estimated population figures which were obtained from UN statistics, giving us a number of total monthly searches for every 100,000 people.
It should be noted that this does not indicate that countries with low search volume have little interest as they may be using different search terms and search terms in other languages.
We then used Numbeo to take the user-submitted scores for air quality, garbage disposal satisfaction, cleanliness and tidiness, and the quality of green spaces and parks. When using this source, we only took data for countries that had more than 100 contributors to ensure a fair score was given. These scores are out of 100, with a higher number indicating a more positive score.
With all of these factors, we then used a weighted ranking system where each factor was given an equal weighting in order to rank our countries.