Recent research into the happiness of Europeans has revealed that the high demand for manufactured goods and travel, and all that entails the burning of fossil fuels does not in fact provide us with a better sense of “life satisfaction” or well- being, but quite the opposite.

The New Economics Foundation together with Friends of the Earth, have published a report about the European Happy Planet Index which calculates the carbon efficiency with which European nations produce long and satisfactory lives for their people.

For the UK, the results sadly were pretty grim, coming in at 21st place out of 30 nations overall and 15th in both the life satisfaction table and the life expectancy table.

The solution? The report suggests that we should introduce policies which reduce demand, since meeting the high demand of some European citizens is not providing the desired results- happiness.  In addition, the countries that didn’t fare well were recommended to look at adopting the policies and practices of more successful countries such as Iceland (which scored highest on the index  and is well- known for its wide use of renewable energy resources) in order to bring a smile to both their citizens and their environment.

Source: www.neweconomics.org