The study was conducted by the University of Pisa and published in the journal Ecological IndicatorsAccording to the so-called ‘doughnut’ economic theory developed by Kate Raworth, a scholar at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, there is a ‘safe and just space’ for mankind that is defined by environmental and socio-economic indicators. Today no country in the world would fit into it. This was the starting point for the research conducted by Tommaso Luzzati of the University of Pisa and Gianluca Gucciardi of the University of Milan Bicocca: what would happen if we adopted less strict criteria than those used in existing studies? The result, according to an article published in December 2024 in the journal Ecological Indicators, is that, unfortunately, nothing would change. Still no country would fit.
The study conducted by Gucciardi and Luzzati analysed the performance of 81 nations and produced various rankings. In general, they found out that rich countries overstep planetary environmental limits, while poor countries fail to guarantee a minimum level of well-being.
“As usual, especially with rankings, things are never black or white,” says Luzzati. “We found out that 26 countries meet the socio-economic parameters. At the top of the list, as you might expect, are the Scandinavian countries, but also Belgium and Switzerland. Italy achieves ‘sufficiency’ and ranks 19th, beating only Portugal, Spain and Hungary among the largest European nations”.
“In terms of environmental indicators,” continues Luzzati, “31 countries in the global South meet the benchmarks, including Malawi, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Nigeria and Mozambique. Finally, several countries are not in the doughnut but close to it: Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and Chile in Central and South America; Croatia and Bulgaria in Europe; China and Thailand in Asia”.
In total, the study assessed 6 environmental indicators (CO2, phosphorus, and nitrogen emissions, land use, ecological footprint and material footprint, i.e. the total weight of all the materials extracted from the environment to support economic growth) and 11 socio-economic indicators (life satisfaction, healthy life expectancy, nutrition, sanitation, income, access to energy, education, social support, quality of democracy, equality, employment).
“We have addressed this issue by constructing two separate sets of composite indicators for the social and environmental dimensions,” concludes Luzzati, “but even with less stringent criteria, no country would currently qualify, which still indicates a substantial gap to be bridged in both social and environmental policies”.
Tommaso Luzzati is Professor of Political Economy at the Department of Economics and Management and is a member of the REMARC Responsible Management Research Center at the University of Pisa.