Nic Marks is a man on a mission to save the planet and help make all of our lives better in the process.

Marks is the founder of the London-based Centre for Well-Being and the man behind the Happy Planet Index, one of several global happiness studies that measure the well-being of mankind.

“I designed the Happy Planet Index in 2006 to create a high-level indicator that would measure how well countries create great lives for their citizens but do it in a sustainable way that leaves a better planet for future generations,” Marks explained.

The Happy Planet Index focuses on what Marks calls sustainable well-being, which is measured by examining what he believes are the three most important components for a happier world: experienced well-being, life expectancy and ecological footprint.

“If you are going to know how well someone’s life is going, you should ask them directly,” he said, “and that is how we arrive at experienced well-being. We use a question called the “Ladder of Life” from the Gallup World Poll which asks people to imagine a ladder, where 0 represents the worst possible life and 10 the best possible life, and then indicate which rung of the ladder best describes how they feel.”

Life expectancy measures are taken from the United Nation’s Human Development Report and the important ecological footprint, which is measured by the amount of land required to sustain a country’s consumption patterns, represents the amount of resource consumption by country.

“We do not produce the Happy Planet Index every year because of our limited resources but the idea is to be provocative,” Marks said. “We are trying to change the language policymakers use when talking about progress.”

Mark’s studied 151 countries and found that Latin America perennially scores best on the Happy Planet Index.

“Latin America has been the number one region in the world on the index since we started doing it nine years ago,” Marks said. “People in that region live a more modest lifestyle ecologically and the economies in those countries generally are medium growth, so there is not a lot of overconsumption. The other types of countries that do well are islands and smaller countries, which both have smaller ecological footprints, the most important factor in the Happy Planet Index.”