The social love action can be observed not only at the individual level but also at the institutional level. Each nation carries out a range of institutional actions that may, or may not, fall into the category of social love actions.
The use of ecological indicators allows us to reproduce predictable global properties directly from the territorial units, the information is collected at the territorial level and refers to the territorial unit of reference.
The process of defining and building the World Love Index, starting from aggregate properties, has allowed us to identify two types of social love orientations:
- one linked to the protection of individuals in need, which we could define as traditional social love;
- the other one linked to environmental protection, which we could define as modern social love.
Starting from an in-depth analysis of the ecological indicators made available by the main international statistical bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, we have selected two indices:
- Humanitarian Protection Index (UNHCR – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees);
- Red List Index (IUCN – International Union for Conservation of Nature).
These indices offer us the opportunity to deepen our reflection on the two types of social love orientations identified, completing an analysis that, starting from individual opinions extends to state orientations.
Humanitarian Protection Index
Humanitarian Protection Index is created from UNHCR data. HPI is the proportion of asylum-seekers accorded refugee status or a complementary form of protection by the total number of substantive decisions (Convention status, complementary protection and rejected cases) multiplied by 100.
The index was corrected for the total number of requests received by each state in order to differentiate the states which, despite having a similar humanitarian protection index, have granted refugee status to a considerably different number of applicants.
Red List Index
The Red List Index (RLI) is based on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and is an indicator of the relative rate at which the conservation status of certain species groups changes in time. RLI is a rappresentation to a biodiversity status and trends in the regions of world.
The index is based on genuine changes in the number of species in each category of extinction risk and is expressed as changes in an index ranging from 0 (all species are categorized as ‘Extinct’) to 1 (all species are categorized as ‘Least Concern’).
The indices (HPI and RLI) have been standardized in order to make the two distributions comparable.
Among the top 10 countries with high values in the Humanitarian Protection Index are: Germany, France, United States, Italy, Malaysia, Uganda, Austria, Canada, Kenya and Greece. Of these, only Germany has a value greater than 1 in the Red List Index, in 14th place, followed by Canada (25th place), Italy (59th place), Austria (63rd place), France (73rd place) Place), Greece (place 83), the United States (place number 92), Kenya (place number 103), Uganda (place place number 112) and Malaysia (place number 124) out of a total of 129 countries.
The last 10 positions of the HPI are occupied by the following countries: Guyana, Estonia, Tunisia, Haiti, Montenegro, Cayman Islands, Afghanistan, Cuba, Gabon and Liechtenstein. Compared to the Red List index, only two countries have values greater than one, Liechtenstein and Estonia rank in second and ninth place respectively. At the top of the ranking we also find Tunisia which is in 19th place and Gabon in 32nd, in the central part we find Guyana (50th place), while all the other countries are in the lower part of the ranking: Afghanistan (90) Islands Cayman (98), Montenegro (100), Haiti (118), Cuba (125).
The top 10 country in the Red List index rankings are: Sweden, Liechtenstein, Finland, Lithuania, Burkina Faso, Latvia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Estonia and Tajikistan. Compared to the HPI, only three of these countries are at the top of the ranking: Sweden (14th place), Belgium (21st place) and Finland (29th place). In the central area we find Luxembourg (44th place), Tajikistan (49th place) and Lithuania (76th place), while the rest of the countries are in the lower part of the ranking: Latvia (101), Burkina Faso (103), Estonia (121), Liechtenstein (129).
In the last 10 positions of the RLI are placed: Tanzania, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Malaysia, Cuba, Philippines, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Mauritius. In this case, most countries fall between the top and middle of the HPI ranking: Malaysia (5th place), Mexico (20th place), Ecuador (24th place), India (30th place), Sri Lanka (62nd place), New Zealand (70th place), Philippines (82nd place); while in the lower part we find Mauritius (118), Tanzania (119) and Cuba (127).