The sustainable cities index
Peter Madden, 20th October 2007, Projects
Brighton and Hove is the most sustainable city in Britain. That's the conclusion of our latest report, The Sustainable Cities Index.
The report comes at a time when the race to be a truly ‘sustainable city’ is increasingly competitive, with Manchester determined to become ‘the Greenest City in Britain by 2010’, Bristol wanting to become a ‘Green Capital’ and London aiming for nothing less than the status of ‘most sustainable city in the world’.
Aiming to cut through the rhetoric, the new report brings rigour to the debate by using current data to determine who’s sustainable and who’s not. In it, each of the UK’s 20 largest cities are analysed according to three criteria – their ‘environmental impact', ‘quality of life’ and ‘future proofing’ – and given an overall ranking which summarises the results.
The data reveals that Brighton and Hove is the most sustainable city followed by Edinburgh in second place and Bristol in third. Liverpool comes bottom of the list, after Hull in 18th place and Birmingham in 19th.
In the UK, around nine in ten people live in towns and cities. Globally, we are now a majority urban world. We have no choice but to learn to live together in sustainable ways in cities. This will mean providing a high quality of life for all residents. It will also mean reducing the wider environmental impact of cities. Forum for the Future chose three baskets of indicators against which to rank the cities.
• The Environmental Impact of the city – the impact of the city on the wider environment in terms of resource use and pollution
• The Quality of Life for residents – what the city is like to live in for all its citizens.
• Future Proofing – how well the city is preparing itself for a sustainable future.
Forum selected these index categories to reflect the sustainability of each city in a fair and balanced way. We used a total of 13 indicators, spread across the three baskets. The indicators use existing data on aspects of performance on which cities are already expected to make improvements. We intend to measure these indicators year-on-year.
Commenting on the findings of the research, Peter Madden CEO of Forum for the Future said:
“We are an increasingly urban world. Britain, with its strong civic tradition, should be leading the way in sustainable city-living. We hope this index will make our cities better places to live, with a lower overall impact on the environment. We also hope it will encourage some healthy competition amongst our big cities to see who is greenest.”
Commenting on the city’s position at the top of the rankings, Brighton and Hove City council leader Brian Oxley said:
"It's really good that council policy on this is actually translating into eco-friendly measures and that these have been recognised. These range from higher than average bus use to new the development near Brighton Station achieving the Ecohomes Excellent rating. Although we're only one city, we are a famous place and hopefully we're helping spread the message that acting locally could make the difference globally."
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Comments
brighton and hove
Residents of Hollingdean, Brighton will be amazed that, in the face of overpricing, dirty streets, an antiquated and naive approach to waste management that has low recycling target built in as an essential element and the Councils disregard for the views and health of the young and old in the area, Brighton and Hove has been designated as overall best in the Sustainable Cities Index. People will be wondering if money has passed hands.
Encouraging for the future?
I think it's encouraging for the future to learn that our city (supposedly the most sustainable) but I can't help agreeing with Gus, this is slightly at odds with the environment as we really see it. Walking to work this morning there was rubbish and dirt everywhere. Our recycling is only collected fortnightly, I used to pay the independent co-op Magpie 1 pound a week and they managed to come and collect my recycling weekly in their small electrically powered truck...I wonder how much of our council tax goes on the inefficient waste management we are now subjected to.
Brighton Eco Award. Gus' Comments
I read the statement that Brighton was the greenest city with incredulity. I fact the council is apparently at war with its residents because it is is so utterly UNgreen. Despite huge protests and thousands of letters they are implementing a policy of sorting and storing rubbish at the geographical centre of the town ACTIVELY forcing hundreds of lorries though residential streets every day, at low speeds emitting dangerous partucliates as they go. Not satisfied with that they then proceed to transport the rubbish by vast lorries for INCINERATION. The incinerator is being plonked in the centre of a nearby town against immense public anguish and fear for miles around. This old fashioned and dangerous policy and attitude towards the residents of the town means the town (sorry city) desrves to be at the bottom of any measure like this. This is mystifying. How can the residents of the city complain that their views are being disrearded by the forumfor the future now as well as by the council?
suggestions
This is a superb and very useful piece of work, however, on pg 13 "The Midlands needs to catch up" you seem to have forgotten that Nottingham is also in the Midlands and leading the way in this region.
Best regards
Jerome Baddley
Nottingham Energy Partnership
Sustainable Cities and The Green Party
It's interesting that Brighton & Hove came top of this list, and have a lot of Green Party councillors on its Council, and could even be under the control of the Green Party soon, and there's a real chance that the Green Party will win a parliamentary seat there.
I remember reading a similar report last year saying Norwich was the "Greenest" city in the UK, and Norwich too has a lot of Green Party councillors on the Council.
In other words, The Green Party makes cities better places to live. Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems don't. Thanks for the confirmation of what I already knew!
This league table is nonsense
Your league table is a destructive distraction from the environmental issues that face us all. You are trying to present affluence and high education as being indicators of green-ness, when if anything, affluence is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions - the more you earn, the more you consume. I would also criticise your league table for favouring cities with a strong service economy - just becuase a city does not manufacture goods, does not mean that it has stopped consuming them! The sad fact is that we have exported most of our pollution to China, and most of our recent progress is illusory.
The sustainable cities index - Re Bottom and Top
I work in Liverpool and had family in Brighton. I know and love both. BUT have you tried to drive in Brighton? It is clogged beyond belief with cars. It has nice parks and a seashore, and much good facadism, but is the substance underneath that good? If yes; how come so many of its residents commute to London?
Liverpool on the other hand has the lowest ratio of car ownership and highest ratio of bus use in the UK.OK, poverty has much to do with this but City centre traffic is light.
Liverpool also has the most efficient rail network in the UK outside the Isle of White, and did all that it could to deliver a new tram network until HM Gov restricted its funding support.
It has a progressive unitary waste collection network and the Mersey is now one of the cleanest rivers in the UK, with plans for a tidal electricity barrage to support the two massive windfarms that reside off shore. It also has several cutting edge, environmental buildings. So what were the researchers looking at when they came here?
Yes, we have some complex social issues, but there is no way you can compare a small provincial seaside town with a large metropolitan city. Take this into account and Liverpool tops Brighton every time.
Judging winners and losers
As your comments show, it is always going to be controversial making these kind of judgements.
We did not just base our study on 'greenness', we wanted to take a wider sustainable development approach, hence covering education, health and so on. We explicitly took three sets of indicators:
- the footprint, measuring environmental impact
- quality of life - what the city is like to live in
- future proofing - whether the city is moving in the right direction. We added the last category specifically to recognise those cities that are starting from a difficult base, but are moving in the right direction.
But most of all, we are happy to have started a serious debate on what a sustainable city is. As you might imagine, officials from most of the cities have been in touch to discuss our judgements. We will keep improving the league table, and will have an objective way to judge all the various green, environmental and sustainable claims currently being made.
Sustainable Cities Index
I see Biodiversity gets a mention in the thirteen indicators. Shame its assessment does not appear to be based on much more than some vague data supplied by the Environment Agency, of all people, especially when species and habitats continue to suffer and diminish through poor planning and development control and under-resourced and inappropriate site management.
Good Work
I agree that it is a good thing to have started a serious debate on what a sustainable city is.
Such a model is always bound to attract criticism - be it from environmentalists on one side, or capitalist minded people on the other.
The important thing is that youre doing the work. I point out that the report doesnt simply state opinions - it makes inferences based on the research findings - which all good research should do.
e.g. the finding of a correlation between the wealth of a city and the proportion of people voting green. A correlation has been found, and it could be a valid one worth us considering more in future.
This research is a starting point. The strengths and weaknesses provide valuable insights for improving how we measure sustainability, and for progressing the debate of what is sustainability.
Good work.