In July, the European Commission published the 2021 edition of the EU Eco-Innovation Index. According to the latest results, over the last ten years, the European average of the Eco-Innovation Index has continued to increase, with the most noticeable improvements in the resource efficiency outcomes and eco-innovation outputs.

Looking at the performance by Member State, figure 1 shows the 27 EU Member States divided into three equally sized performance groups, where the top-9 countries belong to the Eco-Innovation Leaders, the 10th to 18th ranked countries belong to the Average Eco-Innovation performers, and the 19th to 27th ranked countries belong to the group of countries Catching-up with Eco-Innovation. Luxembourg, followed by Finland and Austria, are the top 3 best performing countries, with relatively good results in the themes of eco-innovation outputs and socio-economic outcomes. On the other side, Bulgaria, followed by Poland and Malta, are the three least performing countries.

The Eco-innovation index is a composite indicator obtained by taking an unweighted average of the 16 indicators divided into five thematic areas: eco-innovation inputs, eco-innovation activities, eco-innovation outputs, resource efficiency outcomes and socio-economic outcomes. The European Eco-Innovation Index is helping track the progress of Member States. The 2021 index follows the same methodology as the 2019 index except for minor changes in the data sources for four indicators.

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