How did it come to this verdict?
Well the choices and criteria are not perhaps the best and most exhaustive list in the world, but let's not overly criticise and take a bit of a further look....
Firstly, Good Move only looked at ten UK cities to begin with, and those were selected based on the ten with the most green space within them - which may be assumed to give them a head-start over other possible cities. Once they had that list, it seems they looked at four key criteria to rank them;
- Carbon emissions from the city
- Recycling rates (average domestic rate)
- Gas consumption (average per capita) - but not electricity?
- Number of Green Party councillors!?!
- (Surely this is more of a reflection of how good / bad the local Green Party are at canvassing in that area - and also implies that no other party cares about the environment [which may or may not be true])
Well the post title has kind of given that bit away - it was, of course, Bristol. And it's not that this is a bad choice per se; it topped the charts of their calculations, with an average 47% domestic recycling rate amongst other things.
To be fair, it has done much in recent years to up its green credentials - it became a Fair Trade City in 2005; by 2014/15 it had carbon reductions of 38% from a 2005 baseline, meaning it hit its 2020 target five years early; and also in 2015, it got the European Green Capital Award - the first British city to win - recognising it as a happy, healthy and more environmentally friendly place to live and work.
Bristol was also one of the first local authorities to commit to purchasing renewable energy in its mix. It had an initial target of reaching 15% renewables by 2010, which it did in part by switching all 34,000 of its streetlights to this from January 2007. The council also committed to investing £1.4 m in improving the energy efficiency of its council properties through the '90s and '00s.
How did the other cities fair?
So we can see that Bristol did at least have some claim to be justified in winning this accolade, but what did the other British cities do right, and wrong (besides not having enough green space to be considered in the first place), to get their place in the top ten?
Edinburgh did enough to impress their way into second place, based in large part around their impressive 49 hectares of green space in the city - the most in the country. But at the other end you have London in 9th place, predominantly dragged that low by its huge carbon footprint (actually seven times higher than the city that eventually came in 10th!).
And who came at the bottom end?
That honour went to Birmingham! And they may feel hard done by for several reasons. Firstly, as mentioned above - their carbon emission rate was actually around seven times better than that of London. Birmingham's undoing in this ranking was due to its very poor domestic recycling rate (22%) and relatively low levels of green space compared to the other contenders (only 24.6 hectares).
The second reason for the city to feel a bit peeved is that the way that this has been reported would imply that they are the least environmentally friendly city in the UK, rather than the worst from a list of ten (and based on somewhat spurious criteria).
The Good Move Top Ten:
- Bristol
- Edinburgh
- Manchester (targeting being zero-carbon by 2038)
- Sheffield
- Bradford
- Liverpool
- Glasgow (had the first Low Emission Zone in Scotland)
- Leeds (aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030)
- London
- Birmingham
To contrast with the Good Move list, in early 2019, First Mile (a waste management company) put together their own list of greenest cities. So what conclusions did they come up with?
Well firstly, their list of criteria certainly appears a little deeper; the looked at the number of Electric Vehicle Charging Points (EVCPs), Recycling per capita, amount of green space, Air Quality, pollution levels, efforts around reduction of plastic use and also fast-fashion consumption.
So, how does their list compare?
First thing to note is that only six of the cities that made the Good Move top ten, make it in here - and, they show up in quite a different order. London didn't even make the top ten - coming in at #11 - largely owing to its horrific air quality problems! But for the record, this is how the First Mile top ten looked;
- Edinburgh
- Aberdeen
- Glasgow
- York
- Oxford
- Bristol
- Newcastle
- Leeds
- Sheffield
- Birmingham
Fairly obviously, some of this will always be subjective too. I could devise a list with a completely different set of criteria and weighting factors and end up with another version. I haven't visited all of the cities mentioned here, in recent times, so giving too much of a subjective opinion now would not be all that fair. Spending a lot of time in Birmingham for work, I could say - is that really a better place than London? But that would neglect that when I visit London or Birmingham, it tends to only be to certain parts, and these lists look at the cities as a whole.
What do you think? What cities would you like to see in a top ten - and what criteria do you think should be used to judge?
Research:
https://goodmove.co.uk/blog/how-bristol-became-uks-greenest-city/
https://goodmove.co.uk/britains-green-cities/
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/uk-greenest-cities-scotland-top-three_uk_5c50392de4b0d9f9be69086e?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20vc2VhcmNoP3E9Z29vZCttb3ZlK2dyZWVuZXN0K2NpdHkrdWsraHVmZitwb3N0JnFzPW4mZm9ybT1RQlJFJnNwPS0xJnBxPWdvb2QrbW92ZStncmVlbmVzdCtjaXR5K3VrK2h1ZmYrcG9zdCZzYz0xLTM2JnNrPSZjdmlkPUI3RTY1QjRENDE1MTQ5OTk4MDZDQTEwRjhERkZCNjQ5&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKhKmAkIFJSZOSOR_j1f773yloi3kDnJxIym-lTkgZjfdq8xKP89CW38ZEg3i0ZPUhaLfnUbbT6CKH3mp9ojEMslM1HL7Dd0U8P6bCXu95h7mlizo4zGTP6Dw-Jp8aU2YJ9rSeu7iVe_AstL8g29k8MZQ5XiVwFQMSjhdehddsi4
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