I was interested in finding out which cities in the world are the most “green”, wondering if there’s any official ranking system since we talked a lot about “green” brand ranking.
One site I came across posted a ranking in February of this year that ranked the following as the top 5 greenest cities:
5. Vancouver, Canada
4. Malmo, Sweden
3. Curitiba, Brazil
2. Portland, Oregon United States
1. Reykjavik, Iceland
It’s nice to see that Vancouver made it on this list (no surprise, especially since this was after the Olympics) but it is important to note that every site and every ranking system has a different idea of what cities are the greenest, not to mention that I haven’t come across a source that explained the criteria on how these cities are judged.
Another thing I noticed was that most critics mention on how these cities run on green power or have alternate transit systems, but most important I think it is their willingness to take the first step towards sustainability and their commitment to future sustainability plans that earned them a spot on the list. It shows that a city doesn’t have to be blessed with natural resources to help it meet energy efficiency and sustainability goals. It just has to be motivated to make a change.
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