The Czech Republic’s environmental ranking in the European Union has improved significantly in the past year, especially by reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and better recycling, according to analysis by the Prosperity and Financial Health Index.
According to the index, compiled by the Europe in Data portal, the Ceska Sporitelna bank and the Sociology Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Czech Republic is in the 10th place in the EU rankings, up from 19th last year. In 2022, when the index was first published, the Czech Republic was ranked 23rd.
This year’s results were also influenced by a year-on-year decline in drought conditions across the country. However, according to the analysis, this trend is largely short-term and volatile, as drought is increasingly affecting the Czech landscape in the long term.
The country’s ranking is consistently dragged down by the low share of renewable energy sources in its energy mix, and by air pollution, which was linked to 4,715 deaths in 2024. Since 2022, the share of renewable energy sources has increased from 17.3 to 19.2%, but the Czech Republic still ranks 20th in this metric, its lowest position so far. In air pollution, the country is in 19th place.
Compared to 2022, per capita waste generation in the Czech Republic also got worse, with the country dropping from 14th to 19th place. However, improvements were seen in municipal waste recycling.
In recent years, the country has also made significant progress in reducing annual CO2 emissions per capita. While it ranked 25th in 2022 with 11.7 tonnes, this year it moved up to 17th place with 8.34 tonnes. The Czech Republic has the lowest long-term CO2 emissions per capita in the transportation sector, where it ranked third. Europe in Data analyst Adam Trunecka said this was also thanks to a very robust public transportation system. Eurostat data show that one-fifth of Czechs use public transport every day, the second highest in the EU.
Sweden is the best in the environment pillar of the Prosperity and Financial Health Index, same as in all previous years. Greece and Cyprus are in the lowest positions.
The Prosperity Index measures and analyses the prosperity of the Czech Republic and compares it with other European countries. The Index not only looks at prosperity as a set of economic indicators, but also measures it in terms of quality of life and indicators such as social cohesion, population health, quality of education, safety, housing availability and business conditions.
