Queen of Shops Saves Britain's High Street

Celebrity retail expert Mary Portas has published her report into the UK's retail sector, telling the Government how to rejuvenate city centres and advocating 'town teams'. In the report there are 28 recommendations on what can be done by government, local authorities and business to help high streets revive. Of course, cultural planners, urban design and niche retail specialists have been arguing for special measures to be taken to revitalize town centres for ages... but that was yesterday and we are not celebrities...

Costa Rica tops ‘Happy Planet Index’

Can you measure the happiness of the planet?

The second global ranking of the ecological efficiency with which the world's nations deliver long and happy lives for the people who live there - the 'Happy Planet Index' - confirms a surprising picture of the relative wealth and progress of nations.
The report, The Happy Planet Index 2.0: Why good lives don't have to cost the earth, published by nef (new economics foundation) at the beginning of July, presents the results of the second global compilation of the Happy Planet Index (HPI).

The new HPI is based on improved data for 143 countries from around the world, representing 99 per cent of the world's population. The report shows that globally we are still far from achieving good lives within the Earth's finite resource limits. Latin America tops the HPI with Costa Rica as the 'greenest and happiest' country. Nine of the ten highest-scoring nations are Latin American, while the USA, China and India were all 'greener and happier' twenty years ago than they are today. By the way, the same index ranks the UK as 74th. A lot still to do?