Author: Maciamo Hay
Written in July/August 2020.

I have explained the concept of Spiral Dynamics in here. I find the concept fascinating and extremely useful to study the evolution of societies in history, but also to understand the current socio-political situation in modern countries and forecast how societies are going to evolve.

The chart is an oversimplification as people within a same country move up the colour spiral at their own pace and settle at one level based on their specific needs. Not everyone in an orange dominated society will reach the orange vMeme. In fact, in most developed countries today a good part of the population (around 30-50%) is still in the blue (Order). That includes a majority of people who work at lower levels of the administration/bureaucracy, in the police and army, for religious organisations, but also lots of school teachers, hospital staff, clerks, secretaries, and anyone working in a very structured and hierarchical environment following rules from above (a boss, the state, one's religion).

People in the orange vMeme (Prosperity) are more self-driven, independent, competitive and ambitious. They include entrepreneurs, investors, bankers, stock brokers/traders, managers, directors, lawyers, realtors, accountants, consultants, advisers, marketers, sales people, programmers, software developers, etc. They make up 20-35% of the working population in developed countries.

What interests me here is to determine the percentage of people who have reached the green vMeme (Community) in various countries. The green includes the post-modern philosophy (relativism, subjectivism, pluralism), post-capitalist economy (sharing economy, participatory economics, commons-based peer production, open-source development), responsible and sustainable capitalism, ethical consumerism, concern for ecology and social fairness, egalitarianism, multiculturalism...

To assess how much a society has adopted the values of the green vMeme, I am going to give scores relating to ecology, fair trade, and collaborative/peer production, social progress, gender equality and LGBT acceptance.

I have considered other variables, but either could not find the data or they had to be rejected for some reasons.

• The percentage of not-for-profit organisations in a country, or even better, the percentage of people working for such organisations, would surely reflect the share of the population that has adopted green vMeme values. However I could not find any international comparison for that.
• The amount of donations to charities for environmental protection per capita would also be correlated with the green vMeme, especially if adjusted for GDP per capita, so that poorer countries are not unfairly disadvantaged with regard to the amount of money donated. An international comparison would ideally need to take into account the money donated by country to all environmental charities worldwide. This is because most large charities are located in a handful of countries like the USA, the UK or Germany, and some charities may be more popular in some countries than others. I could only find data for Greenpeace, but as some countries were missing and since including only Greenpeace would skew the data in favour of countries where Greenpeace is better known, I decided not to include the ranking in the overall green vMeme score below.
• The legality of cannabis in a country may indicate that it is more tolerant and relatistic, two green vMeme values. Nonetheless it is mostly a political issue that can change very quickly, as it did in some US states. The fact that it became legal in Nevada doesn't mean that people in Nevada in general are more green. Nowadays the only country where cannabis is legal in Europe is Georgia, which is certainly not a sign that it is high on the green vMeme. Cannabis used to be legal in countries such as India and Japan because it was used in religion (Hinduism in India and Shintoism in Japan's case). If anything cannabis is more likely to be accepted by the purple vMeme.
• Military spendings probably go down in countries dominated by green vMeme values. Yet it really depends on a country's geopolitical situation, such as the threat posed by its neighbours. Finland and Japan may have more reason to keep sufficient military spendings than Iceland or Portugal. In any case, a strong military is a sign of the blue vMeme and was included as a variable for that vMeme (here).
• The Gini coefficient indicates the level of income inequality or wealth inequality within a nation. It may seem that countries with a low Gini coefficient are more egalitarian. However, the Gini coefficient represents the actual state of economic inequality within a society, but what people wish for them to be. If a country had a large percentage of the population that valued egalitarianism it still wouldn't have much effect on how much other people earned. For example, inequaltities in the United States did not rise steadily from the 1980's to the present because Americans wanted to become less egalitarian or politicians took intentional measures to create vast disparities between the rich and the poor. The market did that, through globalisation, delocalisation, robotisation, etc. More socially minded countries can increase tax and redistribution of wealth, but that is not necessarily a sign of green vMeme values. The communists took that to the extreme and they were as blue as it get in the Spiral Dynamics.

1. Consumption of Fairtrade products by country

Country	Fairtrade retail (in €/capita - 2015)	GDP per capita 2017	Balanced	Fairtrade score
United Kingdom	33.9	39,758	8.526585844	85.27
Ireland	54.2	69,604	7.786908798	77.87
Switzerland	57.7	80,101	7.2034057	72.03
Finland	31.7	45,670	6.94109919	69.41
Sweden	36.1	54,043	6.679866033	66.80
Austria	21.6	47,718	4.526593738	45.27
Denmark	18.1	57,533	3.146020545	31.46
Netherlands	13.2	48,754	2.707470156	27.07
Germany	12	44,976	2.668089648	26.68
Belgium	10.2	43,289	2.356256786	23.56
Norway	15.6	75,295	2.07185072	20.72
Luxembourg	19.2	106,806	1.797651817	17.98
France	6.7	38,415	1.744110374	17.44
Canada	7.6	44,974	1.689865255	16.90
Australia	9.6	57,613	1.666290594	16.66
Portugal	2.7	18,882	1.42993327	14.30
Estonia	2.5	19,793	1.263072804	12.63
Italy	1.6	32,747	0.4885943751	4.89
United States	2.9	60,055	0.4828906835	4.83
Czechia	0.8	20,326	0.3935845715	3.94
Latvia	0.4	15,625	0.256	2.56
Spain	0.6	28,354	0.2116103548	2.12
Lithuania	0.3	16,450	0.1823708207	1.82
Japan	0.6	38,220	0.1569858713	1.57
Slovakia	0.2	17,552	0.1139471285	1.14
Hong Kong	0.4	61,000	0.06557377049	0.66
South Korea	0.1	30,025	0.03330557868	0.33

The 'balanced score' column is the € spent on Fairtrade products per $10,000 of GDP.

Source of Fairtrade retail data (for 2015), except for New Zealand, which uses this data. Countries that aren't listed above have consumption of Fairtrade products under 0.1€ per person.

The GDP per capita (nominal) figures are from the United Nations for 2017.

When it comes to ethical consumption, the UK, Ireland top the list, followed by Germanic countries.

2. Peer Production : Wikipedia users & articles per 1000 speakers

Language	Wikipedia users	No of Speakers	Users per 1000 speakers	Articles/1000 speakers	Average users+articles/1000	Wikipedia score
Swedish	735,785	9,197,090	80.00193539	405.6	242.8009677	24.28
Icelandic	74,322	330,000	225.2181818	151.8	188.5090909	18.85
Norwegian	604,819	4,453,000	135.8228161	215.5	175.661408	17.57
Estonian	141,859	1,105,400	128.3327302	190.2	159.2663651	15.93
Welsh	61,943	965,000	64.18963731	135.7	99.94481865	9.99
Hebrew	658,170	5,302,770	124.1181496	50.8	87.45907479	8.75
Finnish	454,977	5,392,180	84.37719067	90.4	87.38859534	8.74
Slovenian	192,050	2,085,160	92.10324388	80.9	86.50162194	8.65
Dutch	1,082,965	21,944,690	49.34975158	92.1	70.72487579	7.07
Catalan	361,022	7,200,000	50.14194444	90.4	70.27097222	7.03
Macedonian	89,303	1,407,810	63.43398612	75.6	69.51699306	6.95
Latvian	92,267	1,552,260	59.44042879	65.9	62.6702144	6.27
Danish	384,044	5,522,490	69.541819	47.1	58.3209095	5.83
Galician	109,048	2,355,000	46.30488323	70	58.15244161	5.82
Lithuanian	144,747	3,001,860	48.21910416	66.7	57.45955208	5.75
Serbian	268,347	8,957,906	29.95644295	71	50.47822147	5.05
English	39,433,068	505,000,000	78.08528317	12.1	45.09264158	4.51
Scots	72,983	1,500,000	48.65533333	38.35	43.50266667	4.35
Spanish	5,894,754	74,980,460	78.6172024	3.4	41.0086012	4.10
Slovak	190,884	5,187,740	36.79521333	45.1	40.94760666	4.09
French	3,837,876	74,980,460	51.1850154	29.8	40.4925077	4.05
Croatian	240,709	5,752,090	41.84722423	38.1	39.97361211	4.00
German	3,503,083	78,245,280	44.7705344	31.3	38.0352672	3.80
Hungarian	450,671	12,606,130	35.75014695	37.5	36.62507348	3.66
Czech	503,416	13,373,480	37.64285736	34.2	35.92142868	3.59
Bulgarian	273,751	8,157,770	33.55708729	32.4	32.97854365	3.30
Polish	1,044,638	38,663,780	27.01851707	36.7	31.85925854	3.19
Italian	2,001,890	63,655,047	31.44903813	25.4	28.42451906	2.84
Irish	43,814	1,930,000	22.7015544	27.4	25.0507772	2.51
Romanian	527,008	23,782,990	22.15903047	17.2	19.67951523	1.97
Malay	258,192	15,848,500	16.29125785	21.6	18.94562892	1.89
Greek	307,634	13,432,940	22.90146461	13.4	18.1507323	1.82
Russian	2,793,088	167,332,230	16.69187102	9.8	13.24593551	1.32
Japanese	1,660,074	125,000,000	13.280592	9.7	11.490296	1.15
Turkish	1,200,107	70,805,930	16.94924422	5	10.97462211	1.10
Portuguese	2,432,890	220,000,000	11.05859091	4.7	7.879295455	0.79
Korean	634,118	77,166,230	8.21755838	6.5	7.35877919	0.74
Arabic	1,893,097	315,421,300	6.001804571	3.3	4.650902285	0.47
Cantonese	203,609	62,221,560	3.272322327	1.4	2.336161163	0.23
Chinese	2,967,583	1,197,294,060	2.478574896	0.9	1.689287448	0.17

The main problem with these statistics is that they are by language and not by country. It is fine for most countries, but not for languages spoken in many countries like English, Spanish and Portuguese. That's why I added regional languages like Basque, Catalan, Galician, Welsh, Irish and Scots to get a better idea of the local European production in these countries.

3. Ecology score

Country	Recycling rate (2018)	CO2 emissions per capita (2018)	Ecology score (Recycling - CO2)
Germany	67.3	9.1	58.2
Slovenia	58.9	7.5	51.4
Austria	57.7	8.2	49.5
Switzerland	52.5	4.8	47.7
Lithuania	52.5	5	47.5
Netherlands	55.9	9.5	46.4
Belgium	54.6	9.2	45.4
South Korea	59	13.6	45.4
Denmark	49.9	5.8	44.1
Italy	49.8	5.8	44
Sweden	45.8	4.5	41.3
Australia	58	16.8	41.2
France	44	5	39
United Kingdom	44.1	5.6	38.5
Finland	42.3	8.8	33.5
Luxembourg	50.1	16.9	33.2
Ireland	40.4	7.7	32.7
Hungary	37.4	5.4	32
Norway	40.7	9.4	31.3
Spain	36	6	30
Slovakia	36.3	7	29.3
Poland	34.3	8.8	25.5
Bulgaria	31.5	6.3	25.2
Czechia	34.5	10.4	24.1
Portugal	28.9	5.1	23.8
Latvia	25.2	4.1	21.1
Croatia	25.3	4.7	20.6
United States	35.2	16.1	19.1
Estonia	28	14	14
Iceland	25.8	12.1	13.7
Greece	18.9	6.5	12.4
Japan	21	9.4	11.6
Israel	19	7.9	11.1
Cyprus	16.1	6.3	9.8
Peru	11	1.8	9.2
Costa Rica	10	1.8	8.2
Canada	24	16.1	7.9
Turkey	11.5	4.4	7.1
Romania	11.1	4.1	7
Argentina	11	4.7	6.3
Uruguay	8	2.8	5.2
Malta	6.5	3.5	3
Mexico	5	3.8	1.2
Montenegro	5.5	6.3	-0.8
Brazil	1	2.4	-1.4
Chile	1	4.6	-3.6
North Macedonia	0	3.9	-3.9
Russia	7	12.1	-5.1
Serbia	0.3	6.3	-6
Bosnia & Herzegovina	0	7.8	-7.8
China	30	7.2	22.8
Taiwan	55	10.3	44.7
Singapore	59	4.3	54.7
Qatar	1	44	-43
Kuwait	11	23.9	-12.9
Saudi Arabia	1	18.6	-17.6
New Zealand	58	7.1	50.9
Hong Kong	30	5.7	24.3
Malaysia	21	8	13

It was not easy to choose data that would reflect the environmental awareness, concern and action of individual citizens, as opposed to governments and companies.

I wanted to include solar panels penetration by country, but that would have given an unfair advantage to sunnier countries where PV panels are more useful and profitable. What's more, I could not find data on the percentage of residential homes equipped with PV, as opposed to companies and industries.

Likewise the total renewable energy produced in a country per capita is not a good indicator as it depends on government policies (just a few people) and the natural resources and opportunities available in each country, rather than actual desire to switch to renewable energy.

I wish I could have added the percentage of people donating to environmental charities (as opposed to all charities, which may be motivated by religion or other concerns in the blue vMeme), but I could not find such data.

That's why I had to settle for municipal waste recycling rates and CO2 emissions per capita. Nevertheless combining the two gives a surprising realistic score of environmental concern by country.

4. Social Progress & Gender Equality

Country	Social Progress	Gender Inequality	Social score
Norway	90.95	0.044	86.55
Switzerland	89.89	0.037	86.19
Denmark	90.09	0.04	86.09
Sweden	89.45	0.04	85.45
Finland	89.56	0.05	84.56
Netherlands	88.31	0.041	84.21
Iceland	89.29	0.057	83.59
France	87.79	0.051	82.69
Belgium	86.77	0.045	82.27
Canada	88.81	0.083	80.51
Germany	88.84	0.084	80.44
Spain	87.47	0.074	80.07
Luxembourg	87.66	0.078	79.86
South Korea	85.61	0.058	79.81
Austria	86.4	0.073	79.1
Portugal	87.12	0.081	79.02
Slovenia	85.8	0.069	78.9
Italy	85.69	0.069	78.79
Ireland	87.97	0.093	78.67
Japan	88.34	0.099	78.44
Australia	88.02	0.103	77.72
Singapore	83.23	0.065	76.73
United Kingdom	87.98	0.119	76.08
New Zealand	88.93	0.133	75.63
New Zealand	88.93	0.133	75.63
Estonia	83.98	0.091	74.88
Cyprus	83.14	0.086	74.54
Israel	81.44	0.1	71.44
Czech Republic	84.36	0.137	70.66
Greece	82.48	0.122	70.28
Poland	81.25	0.12	69.25
Lithuania	81.3	0.124	68.9
Croatia	79.21	0.122	67.01
United States	83.62	0.182	65.42
Latvia	80.42	0.169	63.52
Malta	82.63	0.195	63.13
Slovakia	80.43	0.19	61.43
Serbia	71.59	0.161	55.49
North Macedonia	68.92	0.145	54.42
Bulgaria	76.17	0.218	54.37
Hungary	78.77	0.258	52.97
Costa Rica	80.65	0.285	52.15
Chile	80.02	0.288	51.22
Uruguay	77.77	0.275	50.27
Qatar	69.37	0.202	49.17
China	64.54	0.163	48.24
Malaysia	74.17	0.274	46.77
Russia	69.71	0.255	44.21
Romania	74.81	0.316	43.21
Saudi Arabia	63.95	0.224	41.55
Argentina	76.86	0.354	41.46
Mexico	71.51	0.334	38.11
Turkey	67.49	0.305	36.99
Brazil	72.87	0.386	34.27
Peru	71.31	0.381	33.21

The reflection of egalitarian, fairness and equal opportunities can be encapsulated in a combination of two indices. The first is the Social Progress Index, a complex index that takes into account basic human needs, health, environment, education, access to information, personal rights, personal freedoms and choices, social inclusiveness of LGBT and ethnic minorities, equal opportunities by gender and socioeconomic status, etc. The second is the United Nations' Gender Inequality Index, a negative score which I deducted (after multiplying by 100 as it was rated on 1 and not 100) to obtain an overall social score. I know that gender equality was already included in the social progress index, but I felt it was important to give it more weight as gender equality is a very important value of the green vMeme.

5. LGBT Acceptance

The 5th dimension is social acceptance of LGBT people. It is based on a 2019 global report of the same name by the Williams Institute at UCLA. The data is for the period 2014-2017.

Country	UCLA 2017	Score in percent
Iceland	8.9	89
Netherlands	8.6	86
Canada	8.2	82
Norway	8.2	82
Spain	8.1	81
Belgium	7.9	79
Denmark	7.9	79
Ireland	7.9	79
Sweden	7.9	79
Luxembourg	7.7	77
United Kingdom	7.7	77
Malta	7.6	76
Uruguay	7.6	76
New Zealand	7.5	75
Finland	7.4	74
Germany	7.4	74
Switzerland	7.4	74
Australia	7.3	73
United States	7.2	72
France	7.1	71
Argentina	6.9	69
Austria	6.8	68
Brazil	6.8	68
Chile	6.7	67
Hong Kong	6.5	65
Italy	6.4	64
Portugal	6.4	64
Mexico	6.3	63
Costa Rica	6.1	61
Czechia	6	60
Slovenia	5.9	59
Taiwan	5.7	57
Israel	5.4	54
Peru	5.3	53
Croatia	5.2	52
Cyprus	5.1	51
Greece	5	50
Slovakia	5	50
Estonia	4.9	49
Hungary	4.9	49
Japan	4.9	49
South Korea	4.9	49
Poland	4.8	48
Singapore	4.8	48
Bulgaria	4.6	46
Latvia	4.4	44
Turkey	4.4	44
Serbia	4.2	42
Malaysia	4.2	42
Lithuania	4.1	41
Romania	4.1	41
China	3.9	39
Kuwait	3.5	35
Russia	3.4	34
Qatar	3.2	32
North Macedonia	3	30
Saudi Arabia	3	30

Overall score

I gave a score on 100 for the first four categories, made an average in percent then added a custom Wikipedia score to the total as a bonus. In other words: (ecology + social + fairtrade + LGBT)/4 + Wikipedia.

Unsurprisingly Sweden tops the ranking for all values associated with the green vMeme. Note that no data was available for Fairtrade for countries like Iceland, Malta, Israel or Singapore, so their overall score is a bit different than what it should be.

The levels of the spiral are about values and mindset. Even though the 6th level, or green vMeme, corresponds to a postmodern or post-capitalist society, the five factors taken into account in my assessment are purely about values and not wealth or GDP per capita. That's why countries like Slovenia, Estonia and Lithuania can outperform economic powerhouses like the United States or Australia. In fact Luxembourg, which has the highest GDP per capita in the Western world, only gets an average score here. Countries obsessed with making money are often dominated by the orange vMeme (5th level). With too many people stuck in the orange mindset, it's only logical that fewer move on to the green level of consciousness, which is about quality of life rather than getting rich at all costs.

Country	Ecology score	Social score	Fairtrade score	LGBT score	TOTAL	Wikipedia score	Overall score
Sweden	41.3	85.45	66.8	79	68.14	24.28	92.42
Iceland	13.7	83.59		89	62.10	18.85	80.95
Finland	33.5	84.56	69.41	74	65.37	8.74	74.11
Switzerland	47.7	86.19	72.03	74	69.98	3.9	73.88
United Kingdom	38.5	76.08	85.27	77	69.21	4.4	73.61
Norway	31.3	86.55	20.72	82	55.14	17.57	72.71
Ireland	32.7	78.67	77.87	79	67.06	3.51	70.57
Netherlands	46.4	84.21	27.07	86	60.92	7.07	67.99
Denmark	44.1	86.09	31.46	79	60.16	5.83	65.99
Austria	49.5	79.1	45.27	68	60.47	3.8	64.27
Germany	58.2	80.44	26.68	74	59.83	3.8	63.63
Belgium	45.4	82.27	23.56	79	57.56	6	63.56
New Zealand	50.9	75.63	32.07	75	58.40	4.5	62.90
Singapore	54.7	76.73		48	59.81	0.17	59.98
Australia	41.2	77.72	16.66	73	52.15	4.5	56.65
France	39	82.69	17.44	71	52.53	4.05	56.58
Slovenia	51.4	78.9	0	59	47.33	8.65	55.98
Luxembourg	33.2	79.86	17.98	77	52.01	3.9	55.91
Israel	11.1	71.44		54	45.51	8.75	54.26
Estonia	14	74.88	12.63	49	37.63	15.93	53.56
Spain	30	80.07	2.12	81	48.30	3.8	52.10
Canada	7.9	80.51	16.9	82	46.83	4.5	51.33
Taiwan	44.7			57	50.85	0.17	51.02
Portugal	23.8	79.02	14.3	64	45.28	5.7	50.98
Italy	44	78.79	4.89	64	47.92	2.84	50.76
Malta	3	63.13		76	47.38		47.38
Lithuania	47.5	68.9	1.82	41	39.81	5.75	45.56
United States	19.1	65.42	4.83	72	40.34	4.5	44.84
South Korea	45.4	79.81	0.33	49	43.64	0.74	44.38
Czechia	24.1	70.66	3.94	60	39.68	3.59	43.27
Slovakia	29.3	61.43	1.14	50	35.47	4.09	39.56
Latvia	21.1	63.52	2.56	44	32.80	6.27	39.07
Croatia	20.6	67.01	0	52	34.90	4	38.90
Poland	25.5	69.25	0	48	35.69	3.19	38.88
Hungary	32	52.97	0	49	33.49	3.66	37.15
Uruguay	5.2	50.27	0	76	32.87	4.10	36.97
Japan	11.6	78.44	1.57	49	35.15	1.15	36.30
Cyprus	9.8	74.54	0	51	33.84	1.82	35.66
Greece	12.4	70.28	0	50	33.17	1.82	34.99
Bulgaria	25.2	54.37	0	46	31.39	3.3	34.69
Costa Rica	8.2	52.15	0	61	30.34	4.10	34.44
Argentina	6.3	41.46	0	69	29.19	4.10	33.29
Chile	-3.6	51.22	0	67	28.66	4.10	32.76
Hong Kong	24.3		0.66	65	29.99	0.23	30.22
Mexico	1.2	38.11	0	63	25.58	4.10	29.68
Peru	9.2	33.21	0	53	23.85	4.10	27.95
Serbia	-6	55.49	0	42	22.87	5.05	27.92
China	22.8	48.24	0	39	27.51	0.17	27.68
Malaysia	13	46.77	0	42	25.44	1.89	27.33
North Macedonia	-3.9	54.42	0	30	20.13	6.95	27.08
Brazil	-1.4	34.27	0	68	25.22	0.79	26.01
Romania	7	43.21	0	41	22.80	1.97	24.77
Turkey	7.1	36.99	0	44	22.02	1.1	23.12
Russia	-5.1	44.21	0	34	18.28	1.32	19.60
Saudi Arabia	-17.6	41.55	0	30	13.49	0.47	13.96
Qatar	-43	49.17	0	32	9.54	0.47	10.01
Kuwait	-12.9		0	35	7.37	0.47	7.84

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