Sustainable Cities Index
Forum for the Future’s annual Sustainable Cities Index tracks progress on sustainability in Britain’s 20 largest cities - highlighting their environmental performance, quality of life and their readiness for the challenges of the future.
The index is intended to encourage healthy competition, stimulating discussion and giving citizens the tools to hold their leaders to account. It attracts considerable media attention, raising awareness of what it means to be a sustainable city.
Brighton, Bristol and Newcastle have each claimed the top position in the three years since we launched the index in 2007, and it has succeeded in showcasing what they have achieved to their citizens and to other cities.
“Forum for the Future’s Sustainable Cities Index has driven real change by inspiring cities to adopt more ambitious sustainability strategies and by providing a framework against which they can benchmark their efforts.” Margaret Eaton, Chairman, Local Government Association
We measure 13 indicators in three broad baskets:
- Environmental impact – the city’s impact in terms of resource use and pollution;
- Quality of life – what the city is like for people to live in;
- Future-proofing – how well the city is preparing for a sustainable future.
The indicators are designed to give a snapshot of sustainability in each city and chosen to reflect areas in which local authorities have the power to enhance the sustainability of their city.
The 2009 results
Newcastle pushed previous winners Bristol and Brighton into second and third place in 2009 – the first time a northern industrial city has broken into the top three. It tops the environmental table, and comes fourth for both quality of life and future-proofing.
Its achievement shows that it is possible for cities with an industrial heritage to overcome the legacy of the past and perform well on many measures of sustainability.
Newcastle has risen from fourth last year and eighth in 2007, and its result rewards the ambitions set out in its Sustainable Community Strategy for 2008-2011: “Our economic growth will not have been achieved at the expense of the environment – Newcastle in 2021 will be a sustainable city with excellent air quality, low waste levels, low carbon emissions and high recycling rates.”
Bristol tops the quality of life table and ranks third on future-proofing. It has the highest scores for recycling and household waste collections, and comes second on employment and transport. But it is let down by some poorer performances on the environmental table.
Brighton, which came top in 2007, is second for future-proofing and third for quality of life, but is also let down by its environmental performance. It has the strongest economy but the worst ecological footprint – the amount of land required to provide each person with food, transport, housing, goods and services.
Leicester takes fourth place – a strong rise from eighth last year and 14th in 2007 – and tops the future-proofing table, reflecting the ambitious strategies noted in last year’s index.
London moves up four to fifth place and takes second place for quality of life, with strong scores on employment, transport and health. Its economy is second only to Brighton.
Overall city rankings
2009 rank (2008) [2007] - click on city for detailed factsheet
1 (4) [8] Newcastle
2 (1) [3] Bristol
3 (2) [1] Brighton and Hove
4 (8) [14] Leicester
5 (9) [10] London
6 (13) [5] Leeds
7 (6) [2] Edinburgh
8 (10=) [11] Nottingham
9 (7) [7] Sheffield
10 (5) [6] Cardiff
11 (14) [17] Coventry
12 (3) [4] Plymouth
13 (12) [13] Sunderland
14 (15) [12] Manchester
15 (17) [20] Liverpool
16 (10=) [9] Bradford
17 (19) [19] Birmingham
18 (16) [16] Wolverhampton
19 (18) [15] Glasgow
20 (20) [18] Hull
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Comments
Forum for the Future welcomes constructive comment and differing opinions. We reserve the right not to publish messages which we believe are commercial or designed to disrupt discussion. We moderate comments according to these guidelines.
Bristol
I cannot believe that Bristol scored so highly under Transport. Bristol is the most congested city outside London, and has the slowest traffic speeds outside the capital. It has no tram or rapid transit system, and a very limited local rail service. The dominant bus operator is First which charges some of the highest fares in the UK (blaming congestion on high operating costs). Bristol also bungled its chance to get a tram system as it could not agree with partner authority South Gloucestershire Council on the northern terminus. This same disagreement has again been aired by a local councillor relating to the proposed northern terminus of the successor Bus Rapid Transit scheme now out for consultation. The greater Bristol area consists of several local authorities. Bristol City Council proposed a joint application for a greater Bristol Integrated Transport Authority, but its partner authorities (South Glos, North Somerset, and Bath & Northeast Somerset) disagreed. Bristol was awarded Cycling City status by the Government last year and was recently criticised for failing to actually spend any of the funding on tangible projects. So I would dispute that Bristol is a leader in transport provision.
Bristol transport
Pete - I would agree with you that Bristol's higher ranking on transport this year raised a few eyebrows with those of us living in the city. But I do personally maintain that the ongoing bus improvements are at last a step in the right direction, probably running ahead of public perception. The technical answer, as I understand it, lies in the way each basket of sustainability measures can change slightyl from year to year depending on available data. So transport in the past was based on public opinion survey, which you rightly say in Bristol is a very low score. Thie year, for the first time, newly avaliable data was used which actually measures the average distances of available bus access to shops and services, which it turns out Bristol scores very well in. For me, that indicates the great potential in Bristol to have a really good public transport service if we can start getting it right with some of the new measures. We can but hope! Insidentially these data changes can work both ways. Previously Bristol did much better in the green spaces measure, again by public opinion survey. This year measurable 'green flag' status was used, which saw Bristol fall sharply. So people appreciate the cities' many green spaces but they don't come up to a formal standard. Overall these changes usually even out, and what we can say with confidence over the last three years of the Index is that Bristol and Brighton clearly have the best claim to be the UK's leading example of urban sustainability. But for all the reason you mention, we all know that being the best in the UK is a very poor measure when judged by the standards of our leading European cities. Paul Rainger, Forum for the Future, Head of Sustainable Bristol City-Region Programme.
Sustainable Cities Index
Being based in Stoke-on-Trent I was surprised that Stoke was not present somewhere in the list, even if that was to be at the bottom! This list is supposed to comprise Britian's 20 largest cities, yet by my research via ONS, Stoke is either 15th largest city in its own right (pop 258,600), or 10th largest if adjacent, and areally indistinguishable, Newcastle under Lyme is included (334,700).
How do you account for this error and how are you going to fix it?
Re: Sustainable Cities Index
Dear Colin Thank you for your query. Who to include? and who not to? and balancing consistency with earlier years is always difficult. We would love to cover every area of the UK but do not have the resources to do so. So we settled on Cities as a way to capture the public's imagination - not least because increasing numbers of people are living in cities. And we settled on 20 as that is a manageable number. We have set out the criteria we used in appendix 3 to this year's report. In brief, we used population data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) based on their 2007 mid point population estimates, we excluded urban areas that don't have city status (e.g. Doncaster) or comparable data is not available (e.g. Belfast) or is a Unitary Authority (e.g. Stoke) or District (e.g. Wakefield). On our original list Stoke is 27th by size (with London (GLA), Manchester (AGMA) and Birmingham being 1st, 2nd and 3rd). We really encourage other organisations or citizens of other areas not included in our 20 to crunch the numbers themselves. Next year will be our fourth year of running the Index - we welcome other thoughts on which cities/urban areas we should include next year? David
Is your data accurate ?
I am not sure of the validity of this document. Your attention to detail is sadly lacking. The report itself has a full page picture of Hull Marina, Humberside. The picture itself was taken just after the marina opened in the 1983 and is hence over 25 YEARS OLD. You can still see evidence of construction on the quayside.
Also you state that Hull is in Humberside. Humberside was abolished 1996, some 13 YEARS AGO.
I can only assume your date capture has the same amount of holes in it. Do you all actually know what you are talking about??
Re: Is your data accurate?
Thanks for your comments and for drawing our attention to the fact that the picture we used to illustrate Hull is an old one. To be honest, we spent much more time concentrating on the figures than the images, and you'll notice that the design of the report is very similar to last year's. We sourced the image and caption from a picture library. We think it still stands as a great image but we'll amend the copy, as you have suggested.
Alex Johnson