Newcastle is most sustainable city

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Newcastle-upon-Tyne is the most sustainable city in the UK and Hull is the least, according to the latest sustainable cities index produced by Forum for the Future. The previous two winners of this title – Bristol and Brighton – have been moved into second and third places respectively.

The organisation admitted that Newcastle didn't have a reputation for being particularly 'green' but it said the city won because "it does fairly well across the whole set of indicators we use to capture a balanced picture of cities' sustainability, with no particular area of weakness".

Cities are ranked according to their performance in three areas – their impact on the environment, their citizens' quality of life, and their readiness for future challenges. While Bristol and Brighton scored well quality of life, they weren't so good on environmental impact so Newcastle – which is located in the country's first designated 'low carbon economic area' – won out.

Forum for the Future's Helen Clarkson said: "For me that reinforces one of the key messages about sustainability, that it's all about striking a balance between the economic, the environmental and the social, and avoiding trade-offs. Cities that find the sweet-spot of low-carbon innovation that grows the local economy, providing jobs and better quality of life will be the truly sustainable cities of tomorrow."

Newcastle City Council's executive member for environment, sustainability and transport Wendy Taylor said: "For the past five years, sustainability has been at the very heart of our agenda and we are delighted to have our progress acknowledged."

Hull suffered from poor air quality which went down from 14 out of 20 last year to seven this year. The city also got a rating of one for biodiversity and six for household waste collection. Hull City Council environmental sustainability portfolio holder David Woods said that the report was inaccurate in that it presented "a snapshot of the city from a year ago" and things have changed.

"Over the last 12 months we have made improvements to the city's environmental sustainability by addressing fuel poverty across the private and public sectors and reducing energy consumption," he said.