Is Bristol the greenest city in the UK?

Well, according to a report recently released by Good Move, Bristol is the greenest city in the UK for 2019.

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])

Anyway, what result did this lead to? 
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:

1. Bristol
2. Edinburgh
3. Manchester (targeting being zero-carbon by 2038)
4. Sheffield
5. Bradford
6. Liverpool
7. Glasgow (had the first Low Emission Zone in Scotland)
8. Leeds (aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030)
9. London
10. Birmingham

Another version:
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;

1. Edinburgh
2. Aberdeen
3. Glasgow
4. York
5. Oxford
6. Bristol
7. Newcastle
8. Leeds
9. Sheffield
10. Birmingham

An incredible Scottish 1-2-3! Given the emphasis that the Scottish government appears to be giving Scotland as the place to come for sustainable businesses (presumably at least partially with an eye to the future, as North Sea oil/gas starts to decline) and the pride it has in its fantastic natural landscapes, this verdict is possibly not so surprising.

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

Turning iron into greenery

This post, somewhat strangely, was influenced by a recent episode of BBC Gardeners World....

This was not about some nice cottage garden in Wiltshire, or the grand expanse outside a stately home, but rather an old factory. In Germany.

Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord is in North Rhine Westphalia. Judging by the photos of it now, it is hard to believe that in early 1985, this place was still a working ironworks.

One of the old bunkers converted into a garden (Wikimedia Commons)

In April 1985, the Thyssen ironworks closed down, and it lay dormant for several years. But then in 1991, Peter Latz and partners won a contract to design a new landscaped park on the site. Unlike others, Latz decided to keep and fully incorporate the old buildings on this 180ha site, preserving as much as he possibly could. 

He even went as far as designing in the retention of all the polluted soils. Rather than excavating and replacing them, they were filled with plants that could achieve phytoremediation, that is, using plants called hyperaccumulators to clean the soil! Such plants include many from the mustard and cabbage family; the bioaccelerate, degrade or render harmless, many contaminants including heavy metals and organic pollutants.

The ironworks structures were turned into features of the park, and the site was divided into separate areas which were then joined together by a thread of pathways and waterways, using the old railway and sewage systems for guidance. The park opened in 1994, and now regularly gets around a million visitors a year. The Guardian newspaper, here in the UK, added it to its list of the ten most beautiful urban oases in the world.

The frames of the old ironworks buildings stand out, but have been softened as nature regains old ground (Wikimedia Commons)

Some of the ingenious design features include;

• Old ore bunkers turned into intimate spaces, such as alpine gardens.
• An old gas tank used as a massive pool for scuba divers.
• The old concrete walls retained for use by rock climbers.
• The middle of the steel mill is now the grand central piazza.
• The Casthouse has a high-ropes course set-up.
• The blast furnace has had a viewing tower added to it.
• For the kids - a massive tube slide goes through two of the bunkers; and there is also a children's farm and multiple play areas.

The site has around 700 plant species contained there, and it is now a popular site for artists, dog walkers, cyclists, architecture students and more.

This is a great story about, in essence, recycling and reusing, but just on a grand scale. The sustainable impact of such a place is huge - no mass displacement of waste or polluted soil, not much virgin material added, hectares of new woodland and gardens, all wrapped up in something that has become a vital community resource.

But such an urban park is not the first, nor is it the only one - although it may be one of the more impressive ones.

And now, London is set to become the first so-called National Park City. The National Park City Foundation is a registered charity that has worked with the Salzburg Global Seminar and World Urban Parks to formulate a Universal Charter of National Park Cities - which aims to provide a framework and key principles to work by. The Charter says a National Park City is;

"A place, a vision and a city-wide community that is acting together to make life better for people, wildlife and nature. A defining feature is the widespread commitment to act so people, culture and nature work together to provide a better foundation for life.
It is a timely cultural choice, a commitment to a sense of place and way of life that sustains people and nature in cities and beyond.
People and cities around the world can draw from the goals, principles and aspirations of this Universal Charter for National Park Cities."

London launched this status with a festival last month, with 300 events across the city to help people with a 'free celebration of the great outdoors.' Dr Cecily Maller says of this initiative in London;

"In the past, cities have been considered impoverished forms of nature compared to places such as national parks, but this is changing."

This change is necessary, as the UN predicts that almost two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities by 2050. Other urban rewilding comes with 'wildlife gardening'; that is, removing some of the weed plants that choke native species, adding in water features, adding / retaining trees, and re-introducing more native species. This can create 'safe spots' for wildlife to survive in, such as the brush turkeys that returned to Brisbane in the 1970s, because residents planted the rainforest plants that they like. Maller adds;

"Research has shown that cities provide important habitats for a wide range of species, including those that might be endangered or under threat. We undervalue the richness of nature in urban areas by positioning nature and humanity as inherently separate." 

Research:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landschaftspark_Duisburg-Nord 

https://www.landschaftspark.de/en/

https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/environment/parks-green-spaces-and-biodiversity/london-national-park-city

http://www.nationalparkcity.london/national-park-city-foundation

https://npc-universal-charter.netlify.com/

Transform Magazine: 'Into the wild' -May 2019