Global Post: Top 5 Greenest Cities in the World

[Hed Kandi]

Top 5 Greenest Cities in the World


This article by Beth Hodgson originally appeared in GlobalPost.

Over the last few months, we’ve seen serious discussions taking place globally as countries and cities pledge to go green.

Some cities have made greener strides than others, which puts them at the top of the list for sustainability goals.

The five greenest cities in the world aren’t necessarily those that are nothing but green space, but they’re on the right track to improving their footprints.

5. Vancouver, Canada

Vancouver has been recognized for trying to make the Winter Olympic games sustainable, but it’s their day-to-day focus that really allows this Canadian city to earn its ranking. Ninety percent of Vancouver is powered by hydroelectricity.

Wind, solar, wave and tidal energy all help ensure that this city remains green. Plus, they’ve got even greater goals for the future.

4. Malmo, Sweden

This is one international city that is focused on green space. They are well-known for their parks, but also upon sustainable urban develop. It’s one of the largest cities in Sweden and it’s truly urban. They’ve been transforming neighborhoods to make them environmentally friendly.

3. Curitiba, Brazil

This Brazilian city focuses upon maintenance using green methods, for example, parks that are trimmed by sheep. They are also known for one of the best transit systems, so commuters are encouraged to leave their cars at home.

2. Portland, Oregon, United States

Although many U.S. cities are now jumping on board, this was the first to focus upon alternative transit with light-rail and extensive bike path networks to encourage people to leave their cars in the driveway! It was also one of the first to pledge to reduce emissions and start transitioning buildings to use sustainable materials.

1. Reykjavik, Iceland

This city is run entirely on green power, including geothermal and hydroelectricity. Their transit system also uses hydrogen buses and it’s motivated to become Europe’s cleanest city.

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment...-in-the-world/

[vansky]

wow...

[nickinacan]

Having been to both Reykjavik and Malmo recently, I can attest to the green attitudes in both cities.

Reykjavik is blessed with a massive amount of geothermal energy to both power and heat homes, and even de-ice streets and sidewalks so the don't have to be plowed. But the colour green does not describe this city. There are only trees in the city, but none outside it due to it being a volcanic island. Very extraterrestrial looking. They apparently have one of the highest per capita vehicle ownership in the world, although they did have random electric car parking spots complete with charge station (Painted green of course). The have bus service, but it is quote poor within the city. It is much more of a inter-municipal bus service.

Malmo was entirely different. They love their green space and their public art. It is actually a very beautiful city. It is about the same size as Burnaby, population wise and is really the Swedish suburb of Copenhagen (30-40 minutes away by train), which is an other ridiculously green city that Malmo based itself off of. One thing Malmo does very well is transit oriented development. Malmo is not as dense as most other Nordic cities, but they made sure that dense development was right next to transit. The Turning Torso is actually quite a long way away from the city centre, but it is only a short trip by bus, which is frequent. They were also talking about making transit completely free for the public, just to see what happens.