National Geographics has created a Greendex. A "worldwide tracking survey on consumer choice and the environment."

The findings show that consumers in Brazil and India tie for the highest Greendex score for environmentally sustainable consumption at 60 points each. They are followed by consumers in China (56.1), Mexico (54.3), Hungary (53.2) and Russia (52.4). Among consumers in wealthy countries, those in Great Britain, Germany and Australia each have a Greendex score of 50.2, those in Spain register a score of 50.0 and Japanese respondents 49.1. U.S. consumers have the lowest Greendex score at 44.9. The other lowest-scoring consumers are Canadians with 48.5 and the French with 48.7.

I have quite some problems with those surveys of ‘consumer choices.’

It is likely that U.S. people, on average, are more wasteful with resources than they could be. But that may be less a question of bad behavior, than of availability of choices.

In the late 1990s I made many business trips to the states. I was set up in hotels like this
tower near Tysons Corner. There are no sidewalks there. There are no
shops or restaurants reachable by foot unless you are willing to take a
real chance to end up as roadkill. The residents in that area do not
have a chance to shop for nessacities or a barsnack without using a
car. How much then does a question on ‘using public transport’ reflect
their ‘choice’?

At least to some degree this is not their choice. It is a choice of politicians fed by ‘special interest’ money prefering other solutions.

The same goes for people in India. To have local markets and go there
by foot or bike is not a choice per se, but a consequence of their
economic political existance. Some people in India would love to be
able to waste water like the U.S. citizens do. But there are mechanisms
to prevent them to do so.

The point I try to get to is that state intervention, regulation and
locally accepted ‘decend behaviour’ moral standards are more important
than ‘choices’. The study (pdf) even somewhat acknowledges that:

Though
Germans’ Greendex score is in the middle of the pack, these consumers
are less likely than others to say they are working hard to reduce
their environmental impact. They are also less concerned about
environmental problems and the environment. These findings may
reflect the fact that environmental priorities were institutionalized
in Germany well before most, if not all, other countries. Certain green
behaviors are more standard in Germany than elsewhere and are less
likely to be considered an effort.

When your
dishwasher is regulated to use less than 3 gallons of water, (i.e. less
than dish washing by hand,) there is not much to answer to a question
of "Frequency of Minimizing Use of Fresh Water?" The answer will be
"low" when you have reached a certain point.

The same logic applies in the other direction. The answer to
"Frequency of Keeping Heating/Cooling at Low Setting to Save Energy" is
high in Spain, little heating is needed there, versus low in Russia
with deep cold periods and a traditionaly unregulated heating system.
The way to cool an overheated Russian office is to open the window.
There simply are no regulation valves on the typical Russian radiator.

The study is trying to blame ‘consumer choice’ where it is obvious
that political interests, often outside the consumer’s realm, have and
are precluding consumer abilities to choose.

The trend in this is to blame individuals, where the failure is with the system and the few who profit from it.