Ranking in Environmental Performance Index: Malaysia, Brunei

KL ranks 25 in world environ management
New Straits Times 28 Jan 12;

JOHOR BARU: Malaysia has improved its ranking in a worldwide performance index for environmental management, thanks to government initiatives which give focus on sustainability under the New Economic Model.

In figures released on Thursday night from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Malaysia now ranks 25th among 132 nations under the Environmental Performance Index (EPI).

Malaysian EPI team chief Prof Datuk Dr Zaini Ujang said the latest ranking made Malaysia the best among other Southeast Asian countries, and third best among Asia Pacific nations, after New Zealand and Japan.

"In 2010, Malaysia stood at number 54 out of 163 countries worldwide, as compared with Singapore which was at number 28 the same year. Singapore now stands at number 52 in the index.

"We are now in the same group of high performance nations such as Germany, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Japan and Belgium," said Zaini.

"This was possible through government initiatives under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's administration which gives weight to sustainability through the New Economic Model," said Zaini, who is also Universiti Teknologi Malaysia vice-chancellor.

The EPI was developed by Yale University and Columbia University, both in the United States, with the cooperation of the European Commission and World Economic Forum. It is used to evaluate the sustainability of a country through two main objectives: environmental wellbeing and effects of pollution on people's wellbeing.

The EPI is intended for policy makers to place importance on a target of providing transparent data, based on 25 environmental performance indicators, including climate change, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, water and air pollution that could affect life on the earth's surface.

Zaini said the cabinet had last year approved the usage of EPI on composite data gathered in relation to the country's environmental and natural resources management.

A 20-man panel from UTM spearheaded the collection of data with the help of 10 ministries.

Brunei ranked 26th in 'green' index
Brunei Online 28 Jan 12;

Brunei Darussalam has been ranked a credible 26th in the world in Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and only second behind Malaysia in the region and fourth in Asia. The environmental performance index was developed in 2002 by Yale University and Columbia University in collaboration with the European Commission and the World Economic Forum.

One-hundred-and-thirty countries were ranked on environmental health, air (effects on human health), water (effects on human health), air (ecosystem effects), water resources (ecosystem effects), biodiversity and habitat, agriculture, forests, fisheries and climate change and energy.

With a score of 62.5, Brunei has been ranked 26th out of 132 countries.

Brunei has been ranked No 1 in air, two in fisheries and three in water resources and 17 in biodiversity and habitat. The rest of the points are: environmental burden of disease - 39, water (effects on human health) - 91, ecosystem vitality - 35, agriculture - 91, air (ecosystem effects) - 79, climate change - 128 and forests - 92.

Brunei has scored high in growing stock (1), indoor air pollution (1), biome protection (1), water use (2), trawling intensity (5), marine protected areas (34) and child mortality (39).

To put Brunei's ranking in perspective, in Asean only Malaysia (25) is higher than the Sultanate. Thailand has been ranked at 34, Philippines 42, Singapore 52 and Indonesia 74.

In Asia, New Zealand tops at 14 and Japan at 23.

The latest EPI rankings reveal a wide range of environmental sustainability results.

Many countries are making progress on at least some of the challenges they face. At the indicator level, the analysis suggests that some issues are being successfully addressed at a worldwide scale, although performance on some other challenges, notably climate change, has declined globally.