Enshrined in national policy and rooted in Buddhist belief, Gross National Happiness has shaped Bhutan’s path for decades. But in an era of smartphones, motorbikes and climate targets, this carbon-negative country must ask itself: what does happiness look like now?
Words and photographs by
FACT FILE
AREA AND TOPOGRAPHY
Bhutan covers about 38,394 square kilometres – a land area comparable to that of Switzerland. Entirely mountainous except for a narrow strip of lowland in the south, the country rises from subtropical foothills at around 200 metres to some of the highest peaks on Earth in the north. Gangkhar Puensum, at 7,570 metres, remains Bhutan’s tallest mountain and is widely considered the world’s highest unclimbed summit.
FOREST COVER AND PROTECTED AREAS
Forests dominate Bhutan’s landscape, with an estimated 71 per cent of the nation’s land area classified as forested. More than half the country – 51.4 per cent – is under some form of official environmental protection.
CARBON STATUS
Bhutan is the only country in the world officially recognised as carbon negative. Its forests and low industrial emissions enable it to sequester more carbon dioxide than it produces – a net sink of apround 6.3 million tonnes of CO2 annually, according to government estimates.
POPULATION AND ETHNICITY
Bhutan’s population stands at roughly 790,000 (2025 estimate), comprising three major ethnolinguistic groups: the Ngalop (mainly in the west), the Sharchop (east) and the Lhotshampa (south). Several indigenous tribal groups also reside in remote mountain areas.
CAPITAL AND CITIES
The capital, Thimphu, has a population of around 115,000. Other key urban centres include Paro, known for its airport and sacred sites, and Phuentsholing, a major commercial hub on the Indian border.
LANGUAGE AND RELIGION
Dzongkha is the official language, though English is widely spoken and used in education. Bhutan’s population is predominantly Buddhist – specifically Vajrayana Buddhism – with Hinduism practised by many in the south.
ECONOMY AND GROWTH
Bhutan’s GDP is estimated at about US$2.9 billion (2023). Key economic drivers include hydropower exports, tourism and agriculture. Since 1996, GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 6.46 per cent, although recent global disruptions have created volatility.
HEALTH SERVICE
More than 95 per cent of the population now has access to essential, free health care services.
CURRENCY
Bhutan’s currency is the ngultrum (BTN), pegged to the Indian rupee (INR).
WASTE AND RECYCLING
Bhutan produces around 50 tonnes of waste daily in Thimphu alone, of which 17 per cent is plastic. Just 0.01 per cent of plastic waste is currently recycled. The government aims to reduce landfill waste from 80 per cent to 20 per cent by 2030 through recycling initiatives and public engagement campaigns.
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION
Initiatives such as Clean Bhutan and Green Road Bhutan are at the forefront of sustainable innovation. These NGOs and private enterprises recycle plastic into road surfacing materials, school furniture and textiles – practical responses to Bhutan’s rising waste problem.
Being the world’s only carbon negative country can be a disadvantage.’ Nidup Tshering, the founder of Clean Bhutan, is sitting atop a great pile of discarded plastic water bottles as he makes this surprising statement. ‘It can make it very hard to harness money from external funds for environmental projects. International donors will say that we are already carbon negative and so don’t need the money. They would rather give money to a country or project where they can see positive results and not one that just maintains things as they are.’ Picking up a bottle and unconsciously twisting it in his hand, he continues. ‘In a way they’re right. We can’t do more than be carbon negative. But maybe we can show the rest of the world how to do it.’
Sandwiched at the eastern end of the mighty Himalaya, between giant neighbours India and China, the Tibetan Buddhist nation of Bhutan has a different outlook on life to almost anywhere else. This is a country guided by Buddhist philosophy – where the sanctity of all life, human and non-human, the preservation of the environment, and a person’s spiritual wellbeing are deeply ingrained in the national psyche. It can be seen in the way that monks and nuns will happily devote years of their life to solitary meditation simply for the benefit of all living creatures, right through to the innovative and non-harmful techniques developed for dealing with insect pests on crops. In fact, the Buddhist ideals of environmental preservation and non-harm to all life forms are so important that the concept forms part of official government policy. Called Gross National Happiness (GNH), the policy consists of four key pillars: good governance, sustainable development, preservation and promotion of culture, and environmental conservation.
In most respects, Bhutan has done exceptionally well in meeting the goals of GNH. According to Transparency International, Bhutan is the 18th least corrupt country in the world – a better result than the UK (20th), France (25th) or the USA (65th) – and when it comes to cultural preservation, the government puts great emphasis on promoting traditional festivals, language and spiritual values. It’s even compulsory to wear traditional dress when entering any public building. But perhaps where Bhutan – widely considered one of the ten most biodiverse places on the planet – truly excels is in sustainable development and environmental preservation. Today, more than 51 per cent of the country is under some form of official protection (compared with just seven per cent in England) and 71 per cent of the land is classed as forested (compared with about 13 per cent of Britain’s land surface). Perhaps most impressive, though, is that Bhutan is currently the only country on Earth that is officially carbon negative – meaning it removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits.
Just over 60 years ago, life in Bhutan was, for the average person, little different to how it would have been 200 or 300 years earlier. Almost everyone was involved in some form of subsistence agriculture or livestock farming, only the elite and the clergy were literate, and the average life expectancy in 1960 was a mere 33.46 years (today it’s 72.23 years). Prior to the 1960s, Bhutan had no electricity, no roads, no cars, no hospitals – and the few schools that existed provided only monastic education. Telephones weren’t introduced until 1991, and televisions and the internet didn’t appear until 1999. Even money wasn’t widely used until the early 1970s. But in the six decades since Bhutan’s third king decided to cautiously modernise his kingdom, Bhutan has changed beyond all recognition. From one of the world’s poorest and least developed nations in 1960 to being removed from the UN’s Least Developed Country List in 2023, the Bhutanese economy has grown year on year (the GDP annual growth rate has averaged 6.46 per cent since 1996). There is now universal electricity, essential health care reaches more than 95 per cent of the population, 71 per cent of the population are literate (far higher among younger generations), and – despite the mountainous terrain – the road network is excellent. Essentially, in the space of 60 years, Bhutan has gone from being a country living in a medieval time warp to one fully integrated into the 21st-century global community.
But with this increasing development and wealth has come a problem. The Bhutanese still place enormous value on the Buddhist philosophy of sanctity of all life and environmental preservation, and I’m yet to meet a single Bhutanese person who doesn’t firmly believe in the Gross National Happiness policy. But those same Bhutanese also want a car, a modern house, the latest mobile phone – and the chance to dream big. So, how will Bhutan manage the delicate balancing act of continuing to modernise and meet the material demands of its people while still keeping its forests intact and full of wildlife, its streets and villages clear of plastic and other rubbish, its air pure, and its carbon negative status intact?
To find out, I sat down with some of the innovators and thinkers working to develop Bhutan in an environmentally friendly way.
‘We don’t want to stay backwards, with people coming here and saying what a beautiful country this is and how good it is that we are carbon negative,’ said Nidup, climbing down from the pile of water bottles. ‘We want to progress with the rest of the world, but we have to remain mindful of the environment and not harm the atmosphere or the forests.’ He goes on to tell me that one of the biggest issues Bhutan faces is waste disposal. According to Nidup, every day in Thimphu (the tiny capital), some 50 tonnes of waste is produced – 17 per cent of which is plastic. And of that plastic waste, just 0.01 per cent is recycled. Most of the rest ends up in landfills.
Nidup explains that he set up Clean Bhutan (cleanbhutan.org), a small private NGO focused on recycling and reducing plastic waste, to find practical solutions to Bhutan’s growing piles of waste. ‘We currently have nine waste drop-off centres in Thimphu, and there are others throughout the country. In 2024, we recycled 20 tonnes of plastic bottles from the Thimphu area alone. But even so, about a quarter of the plastic water bottles bought in Thimphu are just thrown away. We turn the bottles into polyester for the clothing industry, and Tetra Paks and wrappers become handbags, which we sell in shops here. We’ve now started using 3D printing to convert old water bottle caps into plastic school desks and chairs.’
Just a couple of generations ago, plastic – or indeed non-organic waste of any kind – didn’t really exist in Bhutan. Today, though, as Nidup has indicated, things are different. Around 80 per cent of household waste is disposed of in landfills. But in such a small and mountainous country, space for landfills is limited, and most are close to full. The government hopes to reverse this trend and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill down to 20 per cent by 2030. It’s a big call – and one that will require some creative thinking.
TIMELINE
1616 – Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, a Tibetan Buddhist lama, consolidates political power across Bhutan’s valleys, uniting the country.
1772–74 -The British East India Company, during its expansion into Assam, mounts a short military campaign into Bhutan that results in an uneasy truce, but Bhutan retains independence.
1865 – the Treaty of Sinchula with the British is signed. Bhutan cedes control of the Bengal Duars (fertile foothills in present-day India).
1907 – Bhutan crowns Ugyen Wangchuck as its first hereditary monarch.
1910 – The Treaty of Punakha reaffirms Bhutan’s internal sovereignty while giving the British influence over its external affairs.
1947 – Indian independence. Bhutan begins diplomatic relations with the new government. 1949 – The Treaty of Friendship is signed with India. Bhutan agrees to consult India on foreign policy but retains full control over its internal governance.
1961 – Bhutan’s First Five-Year Plan is launched, initiating a programme of modernisation under King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck.
1971 – Bhutan joins the United Nations as its 128th member, gaining full international recognition.
1972 – At just 16, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck assumes the throne following his father’s death. He later develops the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH).
1999 – Bhutan introduces television and the internet, the last country in the world to do so.
2008 – A new democratic constitution comes into force and Bhutan holds its first national elections. The monarchy voluntarily relinquishes direct political power, becoming a constitutional monarchy guided by the principles of GNH.
2017 – Bhutan is internationally recognised as the world’s first carbon-negative country.
2023 – After steady socio-economic progress, Bhutan officially graduates from the UN’s Least Developed Country list. The milestone marks its transformation into a lower-middle income nation.
One such thinker is Rikesh Gurung. Speaking to me from an office filled with leafy green plants, Rikesh told me how his company, Green Road Bhutan (bhutangreenroad.bt), constructs roads out of plastic waste. ‘The idea of using plastic waste to create roads came to me while I was studying in Chennai in southern India, where roads were already being created in this way. After my studies, I spent several years learning how it could be replicated in Bhutan.’
Putting it in very basic terms, Rikesh explains that discarded plastic from carrier bags, bottle labels, wrappers and other soft plastic items is shredded and mixed with bitumen. The result is roads that are more durable, water-resistant and, by increasing the lifespan by five years, more cost-effective. Importantly for Bhutan’s aim of maintaining a carbon-negative status, studies show that using this road-building technique can cut carbon emissions by 72 per cent compared to using standard construction.
Getting the project off the ground wasn’t easy. ‘When we started out, my team and I visited landfill sites around Thimphu and gathered up the required plastic. It wasn’t a nice job, but over the first three years we collected 190 tonnes of soft plastic waste.’ Today, more focus is put on gathering waste directly from the source. Rikesh and his team knocked on the door of every house in Thimphu, telling each household that they would buy their plastic waste. ‘As of now, we’ve collected and reused over 857 tonnes of waste plastic, preventing it from ending up in landfills or water bodies. And to date, we’ve blacktopped more than 160.5 kilometres of roads across the country. This directly supports Bhutan’s national goal of zero waste and contributes to global climate action.’
When I ask Rikesh if he has any other recycling plans bubbling away, he responds with enthusiasm. ‘Here in Bhutan, we don’t have a proper sewage disposal system. So one day, when we have the financial backing, we’d like to do something about this. Currently, the leftover sludge from sewage disposal is simply dumped at landfills. But with the correct technology, this sludge can be filtered to the point that you could safely drink it. But,’ he goes on, ‘my real focus now is on education. I visit schools to talk about plastic waste recycling. My aim is to go to every school in the country. I explain to them that our landfills are almost full, that we have to reduce our consumption and increase our recycling – and that Green Road Bhutan cannot do it alone. It’s about us all working together. That’s why I go to the schools – because it’s the young who will change things. My generation has failed when it comes to waste management. I don’t want to see the next generation make the same mistakes.’
Another person determined to help Bhutan modernise in a sustainable manner is Tshewang Wangchuk. He’s the executive director of The Bhutan Foundation (bhutanfound.org), a Bhutanese–US organisation that helps Bhutan and its people reach their full potential while following the principles of Gross National Happiness. He explained how sustainability is in the blood of the nation. ‘Before conservation and sustainability became fashionable, Bhutan was already doing it in an unconscious way.’
Echoing Nidup from Clean Bhutan, he continues, ‘By preserving the environment and our culture, it’s important that we aren’t left behind in development terms and stuck in the 18th century. But we are managing. Cities like Thimphu and Paro are expanding fast, and this construction work is raising our carbon footprint and partially undoing positive environmental work done elsewhere in the country. So, as a nation, we are looking to make construction much more sustainable. Instead of using cement and concrete for housing, we are looking at sustainable forestry to allow us to create timber houses that don’t have such a negative environmental footprint.’
Enjoying this article? Check out our related reads:
But surely, I wonder, won’t using timber for new construction reduce Bhutan’s forested land? Tshewang has an answer. ‘Alongside the Bhutan Ecological Society (bes.org.bt), we have started the Million Trees Project, which aims to plant a million saplings across the country. Of course, tree planting is something of an ecological fad at the moment. Everyone wants to plant a million trees; some want to plant a billion. But after they’ve been planted and the project ends, many of these trees are just forgotten and die. We’re doing it differently. We focus on planting trees of value – either fruit-bearing or of commercial value – that farmers will care for. If the tree grows up healthy, they’ll make money from it. Essentially, we’re not just planting trees for carbon sequestration, but to generate incomes in remote areas – which hopefully means this project will work where others have failed.’
My conversations with Nidup, Rikesh and Tshewang – as well as with a cross-section of other Bhutanese, from monks to farmers, mothers to schoolteachers – showed me that Bhutanese people as a whole are confident that the country can meet its development needs while preserving its environment. Most felt that one of the main reasons for this is their strong Buddhist beliefs.
‘I’m confident about the future for Bhutan and our ability to balance all these competing needs,’ said Tshewang. ‘I’m Buddhist, and the Buddhist way is to show respect for all life forms and the environment. Take tiger conservation, for example. In most of the world, there’s conflict between farmers and tigers or other big predators. But not in Bhutan. People here don’t try to harm or kill the cats if tigers or snow leopards attack livestock. They just accept it and put it down to karma. There’s just a Buddhist respect for all life. A belief that by not harming any other life form the world can be a better place. In this way, Buddhism is very helpful to us.’
Towards the end of my stay in Bhutan, I left the landfills and recycling centres behind and climbed high into the hills, through forest that sang with birdsong, until I reached a tiny chapel, hung on a cliff face above a quiet farming valley. And here I met Passang Dorji, a young Buddhist monk who told me of his dreams for the future.
‘I’m 29 years old,’ said Dorji quietly, as if afraid his voice would break the sanctity of the chapel. ‘I’ve already spent a total of seven years in solitary meditation. But one day soon I shall go to a cave up there, deep in the mountains,’ he said, pointing north to where the forests faded into alpine rock and ice, ‘where I will meditate until I die.’
Shocked at such devotion, I asked why he would choose such a path. ‘I’m doing it both for myself and for all sentient beings. All living creatures. It will make things better.’ And with devotion like that – just maybe – Bhutan really can lead the way in making the world a cleaner and better place.
Author thanks
This article would not have been possible without the kind assistance of Blue Poppy Bhutan (bluepoppybhutan.com), Windhorse Tours (windhorsetours.com), Keys to Bhutan (keystobhutan.com) and Third Rock Adventures (thirdrockadventures.com).
