The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks 180 countries on nine priority environmental issues in two objectives including protection of human health and maintaining ecosystem vitality. The objective underlying the EPI is to move the environmental debate from emotional and rhetorical arguments to more data‐ and evidence‐based action that facilitates performance tracking and accountability of decision makers. Now in its sixth iteration, the EPI was among the first tools of its kind and is now a standard bearer for comparing and tracking country performance on international policies, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).