The original version of this article, by Nora Hawkins and Laura Johnson, appeared on State of the Planet.

As creators of the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), we are often asked if the EPI has measurable impacts on environmental decision-making. The short answer is yes; from promoting re-evaluation of air pollution policy in South Korea to inspiring the creation of seafood sustainability indicators in North America, the EPI has tangible influences on environmental actions throughout the world.

Performance indices have been deployed in sectors such as industry and human health for decades, and the past 15 years has seen a wide proliferation of environmental indices including, for example, the Ecological Footprint and the World Bank’s Green Accounts Program. Though we have witnessed the EPI’s application to a variety of policy and management contexts, we realized a broader effort gauging the impacts of other environmental indicators and indices was still missing.

To address that need, we are launching a new report, Indicators in Practice: How Environmental Indicators Are Being Used in Policy and Management Contexts, which details the ways environmental indices are being used and helps to quantify the influences they are having in the environmental sector.

Continue reading on State of the Planet.

Video Credit: “Indicators in Practice with Alex de Sherbinin,” courtesy of the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy.