Expats rank Finland's environment as best

Finland has been rated by a global expat organisation as the world's most environmentally-sound nation.

David Sapsted

1 October 2020

InterNations - an organisation with some four million expatriate members in more than 400 cities - looked at expats’ satisfaction with the availability of green goods and services and the air quality in 60 countries.The analysis, based on 15,000 responses to this year's Expat Insider survey, also included the perception of how much individual governments supported policies to protect the environment and how interested local populations were in environmental issues.Scandinavian countries occupied the first three places in the Environment & Sustainability Rankings, with Finland nudging Greta Thunberg's Sweden into second place and Norway coming in third.Austria and Switzerland completed the top five while, at the other end of the table, India came bottom with Kuwait, Egypt, Indonesia and Vietnam just above it.Finland came in first place because of a variety of factors, including its air quality, waste management, and the government's perceived commitment to the environment. About 98 per cent of expats in the country viewed the overall natural environment positively, while 95 per cent were happy with the air quality.

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The UK, at 28th, was ranked just above the US at 30th, the latter doing poorly because a majority of expats did not believe President Trump's administration was interested in pursuing green policies.Air quality was seen as a problem in cities in the UK, particularly London. InterNations reported: "The country's weakest point seems to be its natural environment (43rd): while 79% of expats rate this factor generally positively (vs. 82% globally), just 36% are completely happy with it (vs. 49% globally)."Additionally, 30% of respondents are unhappy with the UK’s air quality (vs. 24% globally). All of this results in a 34th place in the Quality of Environment subcategory. On the upside, the UK performs better in the Products & Utilities subcategory (26th). Close to two in three expats (65%) rate the availability of green goods and services positively, which is, however, just two percentage points above the global average (63%)."Almost two-thirds of expats expressed satisfaction with the UK's waste management andrecycling efforts, with a similar proportion approving of the nation's energy supply policies."Finally," added the report, "the UK comes in 28th place in the Policies & People subcategory, with the respondents describing the local population as just slightly more interested in environmental issues than the average worldwide (49% of expats agree vs. 48% globally)."Top 10: 1. Finland
2. Sweden
3. Norway
4. Austria
5. Switzerland
6. Denmark
7. New Zealand
8. Germany
9. Canada
10. Luxembourg

Bottom 10:

51. Hong Kong
52. Malta
53. Kenya
54. Philippines
55. Thailand
56. Vietnam
57. Indonesia
58. Egypt
59. Kuwait
60. India