Harvard Growth Lab Unveils Greenplexity Index: New Country Rankings Reveal Global Leaders in Supplying the Energy Transition

From China to Brazil, see which economies are best positioned to drive global growth by powering the world’s decarbonization needs.

Cambridge, MA— The Growth Lab at Harvard Kennedy School today launches the Greenplexity Index, a unique country ranking that spotlights which nations are building the broad, complex green industries that will supply the world’s race to decarbonize. This new global metric reveals a potential reordering of economic opportunity in the transition to a low-carbon future.

Built with the support of the Government of Azerbaijan, the Greenplexity Index captures the breadth and complexity of a country’s participation in green value chains—the technologies, critical minerals, and inputs at the heart of the energy transition. Countries with a high Greenplexity score not only have a diversified presence in green value but excel at the most complex ones, and thus have the capabilities needed to fuel—and benefit from—the global energy transition.

Japan, Germany, Czechia, France, and China take the world’s top spots in Greenplexity, with Italy, Austria, the UK, the United States, and Hungary rounding out the global top 10. Other notable high performers include South Korea (12th), Singapore (18th), Mexico (22nd), and the United Arab Emirates (38th).

“Countries with a complex and diversified presence in green value chains have the capacity to grow in a decarbonizing world,” said Ricardo Hausmann, Director of the Growth Lab and Professor at Harvard Kennedy School. “The Greenplexity Index shows who is ready to lead—and who must act fast to catch up if they want to participate in this growth opportunity.”

Dynamic Shifts: Who’s Rising, Who’s Falling?
While familiar industrial powerhouses lead the way overall, some countries have rapidly stepped up their green efforts. Panama, Morocco, Brazil, and Indonesia post significant improvements in their Greenplexity. In contrast, others, such as Iran, Ireland, Chile, and Australia, perform relatively poorly in Greenplexity, underscoring the risks of not participating in these fast-growing segments of the global green economy.

Why Greenplexity Matters—Now
The Growth Lab’s research reframes the decarbonization challenge: rather than narrowly focusing on reducing domestic emissions, countries should ask themselves how can they help the world lower its emissions by supplying the tools, equipment, and materials that a decarbonizing world will need and generate growth by doing so?” Greenplexity enables policymakers and industry leaders to identify their nation’s most promising opportunities across ten value chains at the heart of the global energy transition, from batteries and electric vehicles to wind power and critical minerals. With Greenplexity, governments and businesses can rapidly uncover where they already have a competitive edge in green value chains—and where the next breakthrough opportunities await.

How the Index Works
The Greenplexity Index is based on the Growth Lab’s methodology for measuring economic complexity but isolates it to the industries that matter most for the energy transition: green value chains. The tool evaluates both the breadth (the diversity of green products the country is competitive in) and depth (complexity of those products), expressing the productive capabilities a country brings to the green revolution.

The rankings of 145 countries, along with visualized data for exploring growth opportunities, are now available at https://growthlab.app/greenplexity/rankings.