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A decent environmental quality is a necessary condition for survival of humankind in general and human development in particular. Environmental pollution is a great challenge in developing countries, where especially the poorest are most likely to suffer. Reflecting the state and the dynamics of the environment is essential for science and policy advice. Environmental indicators capture the physical, biological or chemical characteristics of the environment. Environmental composite indicators merge several environmental indicators in order to summarise the multifaceted state of the environment at national level into one single score. These composite indicators allow for cross-country comparisons. The analysis here includes four cross-country composite indicators: the Environmental Vulnerability Index, the Environmental Performance Index, its predecessor the Environmental Sustainability Index and the Ecosystem Wellbeing Index. In addition, the dimension Environmental Wellbeing of the Sustainable Society Index and the Living Planet Index are analysed. Currently, the latter has mainly been constructed at a global scale with only limited availability at national level. The principal questions addressed in this paper are: What cross-country environmental composite indicators exist? To what extent are they suited to measuring the state and the dynamics of the environment? and, How useful are they for developing countries? This analysis is the first comprehensive comparison of cross-country environmental composite indicators, evaluating their conceptual and methodological strengths and weaknesses. The conceptual assessment focuses on content-related aspects. It evaluates whether the individual indicator is an appropriate approximation suited to reflect dimension and composite, respectively. The technical assessment focuses on technical issues of constructing a composite indicator such as imputation of missing data, normalisation, weighting and aggregation as well as coherence. Third, the analysis evaluates how useful these environmental indices are within the context of developing countries.

This paper analyses whether variances in effective environmental policies that lead to achieving environmental targets can be attributed to the different types of political regimes, the level of a state's economic development, or its state capacity. Our analysis is based on a cross-sectional time-series dataset including around 132 countries and covering the period from 2000 to 2010. Our dependent variable is the Ecosystem Vitality index of the 2012 Environmental Performance Index (EPI). Against our assumption, we do not find consistent evidence that democratic regimes outperform autocratic ones when it comes to reaching environmental targets. The level of state capacity as such plays a rather unclear role where higher state capacity does not automatically translate into better environmental protection. However, democratic states with increasing capacity are less harmful to the environment than autocratic states with increasing capacity. The level of economic development on the other hand turns out as the best predictor for environmental performance: Environmental targets are less likely to be reached while economies are developing but, once a threshold has been passed, economic development starts to become positively correlated with environmental friendliness. The effect of economic development is more pronounced for democracies than for autocracies: people's preferences in a democracy seem to be more influenced by economic development than the preferences of autocratic leaders.

Eine sinnvolle Alternative zur derzeitigen kohlenstoffabhängigen Wirtschaftsweise zu finden, wird aktuell international diskutiert, u. a. weil ökonomisches Wachstum in der Regel mit steigendem Ressourcenverbrauch einhergeht. Eine solche Alternative würde auch erfordern, dass Umweltbelange und der Wert von natürlichem Kapital bei sämtlichen ökonomischen Entscheidungen berücksichtigt werden. Die Diskussion bezieht sich vor allem auf Variationen des Konzepts Grünen Wachstums (green growth), das zu einer Art Modewort avanciert ist. Dabei schwingt die Hoffnung mit, eine Lösung für die dringendsten Probleme dieser Welt zu entwickeln: Das Bewahren von Ökosystemen und die Vermeidung von Umweltdegradation sollen ebenso mit ökonomischem Wachstum in Einklang gebracht werden wie die Ziele Klimastabilität und Armutsreduzierung. Neben der wichtigen Debatte über die verschiedenen Wege zu diesen Zielen ist die Diskussion darüber essenziell, wie das Erreichen von grünem Wachstum sinnvoll abgebildet werden kann. Eine Reihe internationaler Organisationen hat Sets von Indikatoren zur Messung grünen Wachstums vorgeschlagen, und darüber hinaus haben sich Initiativen wie die Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) gebildet, die das vorhandene Wissen bündeln, Wissenslücken identifizieren und der Diskussion eine Plattform bieten. Die einheitliche Messung grünen Wachstums ist dabei weit weniger trivial, als es auf den ersten Blick scheinen mag, da es mindestens zwei Quellen von Heterogenität gibt, die berücksichtigt werden müssen: Zum einen existieren mehrere Konzepte zu grünem Wachstum und zum anderen bedingen die individuellen Rahmenbedingungen der Länder, dass Prioritäten unterschiedlich gesetzt werden. So führen die differierenden Einkommensniveaus der Länder zu unterschiedlichen Politikschwerpunkten und Handlungsspielräumen. Des Weiteren unterscheiden sich die Ökonomien oft fundamental in ihrer Wirtschaftsstruktur – mit Implikationen für Umweltauswirkungen und die Nutzung natürlicher Ressourcen. Zudem bedarf es eines gewissen Maßes an politischer Stabilität, um grüne Wachstumsstrategien sinnvoll planen und verfolgen zu können. Und schließlich muss die Messung grünen Wachstums auch zwischen zyklischen und strukturellen wirtschaftlichen Veränderungen unterscheiden (können). Daraus resultieren mehrere Indikatoren-Sets zur Messung grünen Wachstums. Das Ziel sollte aber nicht zwangsläufig sein, ein alleingültiges Indikatoren-Set zu entwickeln. Um das Konzept Grünes Wachstum klar abzustecken und damit vor dessen beliebiger Verwendung zu schützen, werden erstens eine übergreifende Definition grünen Wachstums benötigt und zweitens, zur Messung, übergeordnete Schlüsselindikatoren, die zentrale Kategorien widerspiegeln. Allerdings erfordern die heterogenen Ausgangsbedingungen in Entwicklungs-, Schwellen- und Industrieländern grüne Wachstumsstrategien, die an die individuellen Situationen angepasst werden können. Demzufolge müssen auch Indikatoren-Sets zur Messung grünen Wachstums nicht nur eine gewisse Flexibilität erlauben, sondern auch in der Lage sein, diese Diversität zu reflektieren.

The need to find a suitable alternative to our present carbon-based production pattern is currently the subject of international discussion, not least because economic growth usually goes hand in hand with increased resource consumption. As part of such an alternative, all economic decisions would have to take into account environmental concerns and the value of natural assets. The discussion is mainly focused on different concepts of green growth, now a buzzword. The hope is that we can find a solution to our world's most pressing issues, one that enables us to achieve economic growth while conserving ecosystems, preventing environmental degradation and contributing to the aims of climate stability and poverty reduction. In addition to the important debate on the different ways of achieving this, it is also essential to discuss how we can effectively map the achievement of green growth. A number of international organisations have proposed sets of indicators for measuring green growth, and initiatives such as the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) have been set up to pool existing knowledge, identify gaps in knowledge and provide a platform for discussion. In this context, finding a standardised way of measuring green growth is far less trivial than it may appear at first glance, as there are at least two sources of heterogeneity that need to be taken into account: the different concepts of green growth that exist and the specific conditions of each country that require different priorities to be set. Differing income levels mean that countries will have varying degrees of scope for action and will set different policy priorities. Furthermore, there are often fundamental structural differences between economies, with implications for environmental impact and the use of natural resources. There must also be a certain degree of political stability for green growth strategies to be planned and implemented properly. Finally, it is necessary when measuring green growth to (be able to) distinguish between cyclical and structural changes in the economy. This results in several sets of indicators for measuring green growth. However, the goal should not necessarily be to develop one sole set of universally valid indicators. If we are to clearly delimit the concept of green growth to prevent its arbitrary use, then we need firstly to come up with a comprehensive way of defining it and secondly find overarching key indicators for measuring it that reflect central categories. At the same time, the different baseline conditions in developing countries, emerging economies and industrialised nations mean that green growth strategies must be adapted to individual situations. Accordingly, sets of indicators for measuring green growth need not only to allow a certain degree of flexibility, but also to be capable of reflecting this diversity.