EIRIS’ country sustainability rating service assesses 64 countries across the globe in terms of ESG factors. Its latest research saw Switzerland top the table, followed by Austria, Sweden, Norway and Germany.

The Czech Republic emerged as the highest climber up the rankings since the product launched last year, due to increased expenditure on health, sanitation and water as well as positive performance on climate change.

Carlota Garcia-Manas, acting head of the environment team at EIRIS, said an equal weighting of one third was given to each of the ESG factors, with indicators such as conventions and CO₂ emissions taken into account.

“The intention was that conventions would be weighted lower as it is easier for countries to ratify them, so we wanted the emphasis to be more on performance,” she said.

While there is some volatility within the rankings, Ms Garcia-Manas said the top 10 remained fairly constant.

“Sweden was number one last year and this year it was number three, while Switzerland went from number four last year to number one, but in general you get more or less what you expect,” she explained.

Canada had the biggest negative variance, dropping from number 16 in 2006 to 27 this year. “This is no surprise, only recently Friends of the Earth released an article on Canada breaching its Kyoto commitment,” Ms Garcia-Manas said.

EIRIS said events such as Thailand’s 2006 military coup and Venezuala’s more authoritarian political regime had impacted the governance scores of China, Pakistan and Qatar.

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