Costa Rica is the greenest and happiest country on the planet, according to the rankings developed by think tank the New Economics Foundation, followed by the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
The UK comes in at 74 out of 143 countries behind post-Soviet Georgia at 72, the military dictatorship Burma at 39 and Sri Lanka, which has been scarred by civil war, at 22.
The highest ranking country in the EU was the Netherlands at 43 followed by France at 71 and Germany at 51.
The United States, was ranked at 114, Canada at 89 and Australia at 102. Zimbabwe and other poor African nations, where life expectancy and happiness is low, came bottom of the table.
Economists said the richer countries came lower in the ranking because of the high carbon footprint of the population, measured by looking at how much of the world's resources people consume per capita.
Levels of life satisfaction, calculated from a worldwide poll, were also not necessarily high in rich countries where violence and inequality continue to be a problem.
In the UK the low ranking was largely due to social problems or what has been labelled "broken Britain" and the high carbon footprint of most of the population.
If everyone in the world wanted to live as people do in the UK, it would require the resources of more than three earths.
Nick Marks, who devised the rankings, said that there are still high levels of inequality in the UK as well as community breakdown and unhealthy lifestyles.
"There are a lot of people who are unhappy particularly at the lower income end of the spectrum but it is not only financial inequality, it is the longer working week, a lack of social cohesion through a sense of belonginess to the community or the geographic area, indebtedness, low levels of volunteering and more passive lifestyles," he said.
He urged politicians to pay more attention to life satisfaction over GDP.
"The big message of these rankings is that we have to produce a system that makes people happier without costing the earth," he said.
