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Sustainability Score

Your personal Happy Planet Index(HPI) is 37.2.

This is below the UK average of 40.3. There are however lots of ways that you can improve your score which will be contained in the rest of this feedback.

The tips and advice below may be useful for you. The websites referred to are all based in the UK, but should be relevant for anyone living in a wealthy country.

Below is a breakdown of the various components that make up your score.

Life Expectancy

Hurray! Your life expectancy is 87.199, well above average for your gender. Probably, you're doing all the major things right – eating well, not smoking, getting regular exercise, and you're lucky enough to have the right genes. Are there any more ways you could make a difference? Some factors that improve your life expectancy are more surprising than others. For example, giving up your car, avoiding living alone, and shrugging off stress.

Ecological Footprint

Your ecological footprint is 6.95 global hectares, or 3.86 planets. Oh dear! You are using between three and five times your share of the planet's resources, even assuming no resources are set aside for other species. That's well above the world average of 2.2 g ha, and even above the average for most industrialised countries. Perhaps it's time to start taking action. Here are some of the most effective steps that everyone can make to reduce their footprint:

Your ecological footprint is not just because of the energy you burn directly, as heating or fuel. A large part of it is to do with the goods that you purchase and consume. You might have heard about China's rising CO2 emissions – well one quarter of those emissions are directly linked to the manufacture of goods for us to consume in the West. Consuming less is increasingly hard in this day and age when everything from mobile phones to shoes seem to need replacing quicker and quicker as a result of wear-and-tear. But we can try and reduce our consumption footprint by:

  • thinking whether buying that electric popcorn maker will really make your life any better than just making popcorn in a normal pan
  • not just getting a new mobile phone because its on offer – it probably won't make any difference to your life compared to your old one
  • buying second hand where possible (which is made much easier with websites like ebay and loot)
  • join your local freecycle – where people give away and get goods for free
  • trying to get things repaired rather than chucking them away – even when buying something new is actually cheaper

It's a hard truth to swallow, but flying has a terrible impact on the environment, and just one return flight from London to Athens adds 0.77 g ha to your footprint – almost half your fair share for the entire year. Flying to Sydney and back you're already polluted as much as most British people do over an entire year. Giving up flying whilst some business people commute to work every day by plane does seem a self-sacrifice for nothing, we agree, but here's what we recommend: take fewer holidays, but make them longer. Rather than flying off to Budapest for a long weekend, why not save up that holiday time, and have a real holiday for a couple of weeks or longer. Then, if you want to make an adventure of it, why not go by train? Check out the handy website Seat 61 for rail links in Europe and beyond.

Well-Being

Life Satisfaction

We've measured your well-being in three ways. Firstly, you told us how satisfied with life you are over all. Here's how your answer compares with those in Britain and around the world:

You reported a life satisfaction of 7, which is about average for many Western countries, including the UK, Spain and Italy. Worldwide, 58% of respondents in the World Values Survey reported a life satisfaction of 7 or lower.

Feeling Good?

You also answered some questions about your recent mood. These are the same questions as DEFRA (the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) used in a national study in 2007. Our scale goes from 0-28, with a low score meaning lots of negative moods and a high score meaning lots of positive moods. The average score in England is 19.6. Your score today is 15. More than any other aspect of this survey, your levels of hedonic well-being are likely to change from day to day, so why not complete this questionnaire in a week or two to see how your hedonic well-being has changed?

Doing Well?

Lastly, you answered nine questions related to what are called psychological needs. Recent psychological theory suggests that, beyond having a roof on your head and having enough money to eat, there are basically three over-arching psychological needs which must be satisfied for people to be happy. These needs cannot be satisfied simply by your conditions or environment, they require you to be ‘doing well’, which is about what you do, why you do it, and how you relate to other people in what you are doing:

Connection with others

How you relate to other people can be at many levels: from intimate relationships with partners and family to just being able to smile at people as you walk past them on the street. It’s all important to us.

Freedom to be yourself

Feeling free to be yourself, and take your own decisions. Feeling pressured to behave a certain way, or feeling unable to 'find' yourself all restrict your autonomy and authenticity.

Self-esteem and making a difference

Feeling like you are good at something, and that your actions make a difference to someone or something. This is connected to an inner feeling of self-esteem and confidence.

The importance of these needs vary from person to person, so there is no specific advice we can give. Generally, we urge you to make sure that at least one aspect of your life (be it relationships, work, hobbies) helps you to satisfy these needs.

Well-Being tips

Based on your responses in the survey here are a few tips on how to improve your well-being:

  • Your job seems to be giving you more stress than interest. In some circumstances, finding anything other than a dull job can be very tricky. But many people stay in boring jobs despite being able to do something more fulfilling because we are too lazy to change, or because we're not willing to take the salary cut that might be associated with changing sector. But remember: most people spend more of their adult life working than doing anything else other than sleeping. If it will make you happier at work, it's worth cutting down on a few luxuries.
  • Activities that get you involved in the community, and volunteering for a cause you care about are great ways to improve your well-being. Both involve interaction with people and so satisfying your need for relatedness, and both can help you develop new skills, which relates to feelings of competence. Volunteering can provide you with an immense sense of doing something worthwhile. If you have not already done so, why not get involved with a local charity or organisation that might need your help? Check out Volunteering England, do-it.org.uk or, for under 25s, V Inspired.
  • If we had a workout for every piece of research showing that doing exercise is good for psychological well-being as well as your physical well-being, we'd be Olympic athletes by now! The only problem you face is the psychological barrier. Physical exercise can start small – using the stairs instead of elevator, getting off the bus or tube one stop before your station and walking the rest, doing a little exercise at the weekends, the choices are endless. For the time-pressed amongst you, perhaps the easiest way is to switch to active forms of transport. Government recommendations are that you get 30 minutes of moderate exercise five times a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise three times a week. It's do-able!

If you would like some positive advice on how to improve your well-being, why not check out the Centre for Confidence website.

Acknowledgements

Those who have completed the HPI survey before, in 2008 or earlier, may have noticed that this version is slightly different. This is due to the unexpected death of its original creator, our friend and colleague Nat McBride, in the summer of 2008.

This version of the survey has been adapted from the Caerphilly Sustainability Index, which we at nef have developed on behalf of Caerphilly County Borough Council (CCBC), based on the original Happy Planet Index survey. We would like to thank the CCBC for their permission to do so.

Feeling blue? Whether your problems are big or small, sometimes it’s helpful to talk to someone. You could call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90.