It may be surprising to say that gender and sustainability go hand in hand in determining a country’s path to sustainable wellbeing. However, a new study has shown that this is the case. A 2026 report has made a groundbreaking discovery, showing how gender can impact sustainable wellbeing around the world. And across several countries, nations in Europe were among the very few slowly climbing up the ranks in the sustainable wellbeing chart.
The 2026 report on sustainable wellbeing
The report is based on the Happy Planet Index (HPI), the world’s leading measure of sustainable wellbeing. Its latest edition was released by the Hot or Cool Institute, a public think tank based in Berlin whose work focuses on exploring the relationship between society and sustainability. The Index is calculated using three components: the average life expectancy of the citizens, the self-reported wellbeing of the citizens, and the country’s ecological footprint. While no country has of yet achieved the highest level of sustainable wellbeing (both a high life expectancy and a high wellbeing within environmental limitations), according to the Institute, some nations show a higher degree of sustainable wellbeing compared to others.
The report covers 134 countries and this year’s findings include, for the first time, a striking discovery in how gender affects the wellbeing score. The HPI measures socio-ecological efficiency: in other words, how much wellbeing a nation achieves based on their input of environmental resources. It also issues a guideline for these countries to follow, which outlines how they can better support their citizens in living good lives. This is to not only ensure the wellbeing of their future, but also for their current livelihoods, and the HPI report tracks their progress towards achieving their sustainable goals. While the global HPI has increased from 43.7 (2007) to 48.5 (2025), the Institute declares that this progress is uneven and insufficient to meet climate targets.
Best performing nations
Costa Rica has returned to the top in showcasing the highest level of sustainable wellbeing. It performed well in displaying an increase in its health and life satisfaction, while maintaining a lower ecological footprint. The report finds that its average life expectancy ranked higher than the USA, while its ecological footprint remained moderate. The country’s self-reported wellbeing (one of the measures the HPI uses to assess a country’s sustainability levels) is the third highest in the world, illustrating that countries do not need to achieve the highest level of sustainable wellbeing to create an eco-living lifestyle for their citizens.
Spain scored fourth in the chart on sustainable wellbeing, and among Western Europe has the lowest per capita ecological footprint. Despite this, its health outcomes were found to be at high levels, and it showed a moderate level of self-reported wellbeing. Other countries, including Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, and Germany, were among the top performers for excellent sustainable wellbeing outcomes, with Guatemala the top achiever out of all of them, ranking 2nd place among the listed countries.
Can gender really influence a country’s level of sustainability?
Policies that are set out to govern a country are crucial in determining its future outcome, whether economically, environmentally, socially, or politically. Perhaps an overlooked factor is the role that gender plays in policymaking, which may affect the priorities placed on these sectors. A politician who prioritises one sector more than another creates a more favourable outcome for the sector prioritised. According to the report, women are more likely to prioritise sustainability over other policies, resulting in the increase of sustainable wellbeing in the countries run by women.
The report offers a deep analysis on how gender impacts sustainable wellbeing in our countries. It based its findings on two categories: individual impact and leadership, where it revealed that there is a stark “gender gap” in how we humans inhabit our planet. With regard to individual impact, the data showed that in 11 countries women consistently achieved higher HPI scores than men (over 20% in some countries), a result driven by a higher life expectancy and significantly lower ecological footprints. This was particularly notable when looking at transport and diet, which showed that men tend to engage in more higher-footprint lifestyle choices than women.
The importance of leadership
In terms of leadership, as women are more likely to prioritise care-oriented policies and climate action, the report showed that countries with female leaders achieve higher HPI scores, illustrating that leadership style is a critical lever for sustainable wellbeing. These findings are indicative of how social lifestyles and attitudes shape sustainable outcomes and that individuals and leaders who choose to prioritise sustainable living are doing so for the better livelihood of their communities, now and for the generations to come.
“It is perhaps not much of a surprise that women are on average closer to sustainable wellbeing than men,” says Project lead Saamah Abdallah, “but what really impressed me in this year’s analysis is the effect of female leadership. Of course, we can all identify female leaders who we are not keen on, but – looking at the big picture – it seems that traits associated with female leaders do make a difference. Given that only one in seven national leaders are female, there is still a lot of progress to be made.”
Key points to note
The Hot or Cool Institute made a point to note that their report rebels against the notion that sustainability requires a lower quality of life. Included in their study were data referenced from 40,000 respondents of their 2024 personal HPI calculator, which challenged the idea that sustainability means a lower quality of life. According to the Institute, what the HPI findings really suggest is that it is the high-carbon lifestyles that are associated with lower quality of life and shorter life expectancy. Sustainable lifestyle choices, however, like lower consumption, contribute to an increase in the quality of life which, in turn, correlates with better wellbeing outcomes.
“The transition to sustainability is not about sacrifice, but about redefining what constitutes a good life,” says the Hot or Cool Institute.
The Institute found that in the report countries with a high GDP (USA, Singapore, and Luxembourg) scored low on the HPI report compared to low GDP countries. It suggests that GDP is not a measure of sustainability, and that the countries that score high in the HPI study were ones that prioritised environmental policies over other measures. High GDP countries, despite their wealth, do not prioritise their environmental impact proportionately in comparison to lower GP countries, which causes an adverse effect on their overall sustainable outcomes.
Suggestions by the Hot or Cool Institute
Generating political discussions on this issue is one the Institute’s main priorities. Their aim is for society to pay more attention to how women are better at achieving sustainable wellbeing, and to discuss the methods that need to be in place that put more women in charge to achieve high sustainability outcomes. The Institute also demands that wellbeing outcomes no longer be determined by government policies alone – that, rather, a more holistic approach involving local communities would be better suited to achieving more sustainable growth. Citizens should therefore work in unison to create better living arrangements that support good societies.
Earlier this year, they worked with local communities in Kereva, Finland, where they discovered that with the active involvement of local citizens, living a sustainable lifestyle and making informed decisions can heavily influence the outcome of sustainable wellbeing. While these factors may not work alone in transforming a society’s sustainability outcomes, a collective effort to utilise both factors greatly helps to align incentives and encourages people to work together to achieve the common goal of living sustainably.
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