Finland tops in protecting environment

The Helsingin Sanomat reported last week that Finland takes the best care of its environment.

A recently released report compiled by the Economix Forum ranked 142 countries according to their performance on an Environmental Sustainability Index, or ESI.

Countries were rated on a scale from zero to 100.

Finland scored particularly well in three key areas: keeping air and water pollution to a minimum, maintaining a high institutional capacity to deal with environmental problems, and having comparatively low levels of greenhouse gas emissions, thought to contribute to global warming.

The result was a score of 73.7 for Finland. Finland beat Norway (72.8), Sweden (72.2) and Canada (70.4) — the only other countries to score more than 70 points.