The Nature Relationship Index and Planetary Salutogenesis
The newly introduced NRI proposes a measurable framework for nations to actively contribute to and track their progress toward cultivating planetary salutogenesis
I just had the pleasure of reading Erle Ellis et al.’s important new article in Nature, “An aspirational approach to planetary futures”, which introduces a new way to measure the health of humanity’s relationship with the ecosystems and biosphere in which we are ineluctably embedded, which they call the Nature Relationship Index (NRI). I hope very much this index gets a wide uptake, and that the World Bank in particular works to make it part of the standard toolkit of measures used to compare the performance of different countries.
As it happens, moreover, the concept of the NRI also dovetails with an article I myself just published (also with a number of coauthors) in Noema on how to think about health and well-being on an increasingly damaged planet. Our article proposes the term of “planetary salutogenesis” as a kind of cross-fertilization of Aaron Antonovsky’s notion of a “sense of coherence” with the concept “planetary thinking” that Jon Blake and I have been working on for a number of years. If “planetary salutogenesis” defines a better way to think about what it means to live in a healthy way on a planet in whose systems we humans are completely intertwined, then the NRI offers a very promising tool for measuring progress toward such a goal. What we are all advocating for is a fundamental shift in how humanity perceives and interacts with the natural world, moving away from an extractive and transactional approach to one that emphasizes the active co-creation of mutual well-being.
The NRI, as described in the Nature article, has three core dimensions: nature “thriving and accessible,” nature “used with care,” and nature “safeguarded.” Its hope is that if nations adopt these measures as aspirational goals, it will incentivize them to actively improve their relationship with the environment. The article departs from a critique of the limitations of more traditional development metrics like the Human Development Index (HDI) that in their sole focus on outcomes for humans have more or less completely overlooked questions of ecological health. The underlying premise of the NRI is that human development should not come at the expense of natural systems; rather, it can and should be pursued in a way that enhances the health of both. The NRI therefore represents a quantifiable measure of a nation’s progress in fostering “mutually beneficial relationships among people and the rest of life on Earth.”
Technical Details of the NRI
While the NRI seeks to overcome the way that the HDI has limited its focus to human well-being, it also pays respects and mirrors some of the HDI’s distinctive technical features, specifically in its focus not on achieving some absolute goal, but rather in incentivizing efforts to drive continuous improvement by encouraging a “higher is always better” mentality not just for human well-being, but for the intricate dance between humanity and the biosphere.
The NRI integrates three core dimensions, each representing a critical element of healthy societal relationships with nature:
Nature is thriving and accessible: This dimension focuses on the management of landscapes that allow people and nature to connect and thrive together. It assesses how much environments where people and nature flourish are available and accessible.
Example indicators: Land area conserved (percentage of national area in protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures) and thriving landscapes (percentage of populated landscapes with ≥25% semi-natural vegetation within 1km²).
Issues with indicators: Protected areas might not always effectively conserve nature, and they often exclude people, limiting their utility as an indicator of accessible nature. Remote sensing for thriving landscapes cannot measure actual accessibility to people or other species, requiring social surveys for a complete assessment.
Nature is used with care: This dimension pertains to societies' use of nature and natural resources in ways that sustain or improve their quality for both people and the living world, without harming, diminishing, or degrading them.
Example indicators: Lower CO₂ emissions per person (consumption-based) and less agricultural land use per person.
Issues with indicators: Carbon emissions are historically correlated with human development, and until clean energy is globally affordable, emissions-based indicators could conflict with human development goals. Agricultural land use per person omits demands for forest production and minerals and doesn't incorporate the ecological and social contexts of agriculture.
Nature is safeguarded: This dimension refers to the financial, legal, and institutional support for environmental protections, ensuring that water, air, and the living world, including endangered species, are kept in a safe and healthy condition free from pollution.
Example indicators: Legal protections for nature (an index based on six international environmental rule of law questions).
Issues with indicators: National measures of environmental governance, spending, and effectiveness are often only available for wealthier nations, limiting their global applicability. Laws may also be ineffective, and the scope of efforts to safeguard nature can be too limited.
The NRI is an aggregate index computed from multiple national-scale indicators. Each indicator is normalized from 0 to 1, and some are inverted so that higher values consistently indicate increasing progress, similar to the HDI. These normalized indicators are then averaged to produce dimension indices, and these dimension indices are subsequently averaged to produce the final NRI estimates. Simple normalization and unweighted averaging are used to maintain clarity and transparency. This normalization process across nations helps to highlight relative national performance, rewarding significant improvements and addressing complacency.
(For more on the NRI, I also recommend this substack by Peter Frankopan, one of Ellis’s eighteen coauthors.)
Synergies between Planetary Salutogenesis and the NRI
All this aligns well with the philosophical and systemic framework proposed under the rubric of planetary salutogenesis. The latter concept expands the medical concept of salutogenesis (which focuses on the origins of health rather than disease) to encompass the entire Earth system. Planetary salutogenesis asserts that planetary health is the prerequisite for durable human health, both individual and collective. It challenges the conventional view that treats the environment as an external variable to human well-being, arguing instead for a radical revision of how collective human health is understood. It emphasizes the profound interconnectedness between human flourishing and the vitality of the Earth system. It shifts the focus from merely treating environmental degradation (the “disease”) to proactively cultivating ecological, social, economic, and cultural conditions that enable all diverse beings to thrive within a healthy total system. It promotes prevention, ecosystem-centric approaches, and continuous engagement in creating health-promoting environments.
There are a variety of synergies between NRI and planetary salutogenesis:
Shared Aspiration for Flourishing: Both concepts share a core aspiration for flourishing – not just for humanity, but for the entire web of life. While planetary salutogenesis articulates what makes it imperative that humans pursue multispecies flourishing, the NRI provides a practical tool to measure progress towards this aspiration.
Beyond Problem-Solving to Proactive Cultivation: The NRI, by being aspirational rather than solely focused on mitigating harm, aligns well with planetary salutogenesis’s emphasis on proactive health cultivation. Instead of just setting limits on environmental damage, both frameworks encourage active steps to build better, healthier relationships and systems.
Interconnectedness as a Core Principle: Planetary salutogenesis explicitly states the inseparable link between human and planetary health. The NRI’s cognate definition of “mutually beneficial relationships” reflects this interconnectedness, aiming to quantify how well nations are embodying this principle.
Holistic Measurement and Action: While the NRI focuses on national-level metrics across specific dimensions, it contributes to the broader goal of planetary salutogenesis by providing a means to track and incentivize the kind of actions that lead to a healthier planet. The NRI can serve as a diagnostic tool within the salutogenic framework, identifying areas where a nation is successfully (or unsuccessfully) cultivating health-promoting relationships with nature.
Empowerment and Agency: Both concepts seek to empower individuals, communities, and states to actively shape a better future. The HDI’s power and success, which the NRI aims to emulate, lay in how it encouraged nations to improve the capabilities of its human populations. Similarly, planetary salutogenesis emphasizes the agency of human communities in creating conditions for systemic well-being.
In essence, if planetary salutogenesis defines the “why” – the fundamental necessity of a healthy Earth for ensuring human well-being – the NRI offers a significant part of the “how” – a measurable framework for nations to actively contribute to and track their progress in cultivating this essential planetary health. Together, they represent a powerful intellectual and practical toolkit for navigating humanity towards a future where both people and nature do not merely survive, but truly thrive.