Austrian’s capital Vienna tops Resonance’s annual list of the world’s greenest cities based on criteria like air quality, walkability, and access to recycling and composting programs. So what makes Vienna so green?
Vienna gets 30% of its total energy needs from renewable sources. 50% of its population uses public transportation to get to work. Add in access to a high number of public green spaces, city-wide recycling and composting programs, and 135 farmers’ markets.
But it is to be considered that Resonance Consultancy looked at the world’s 50 most-visited cities as measured by the total number of reviews they receive on Tripadvisor, which is why you won’t see eco-friendly cities like Copenhagen here. To create an index of the greenest cities, Resonance ranked those 50 cities by nine different metrics, which each carried equal weight in this survey. Those metrics included the percentage of the city land dedicated to public green spaces, the percentage of total energy needs met by renewable sources, and the percentage of the population who use public transportation to go to work. Other criteria included the city’s walkability, availability of city-wide recycling and composting programs, and the number of quality farmers’ markets. It also factored in each city’s water consumption per capita per day, and air quality for particle pollution based on PM10 concentration.
According to those criteria, these are the top 10 greenest cities in the world:
1. Vienna, Austria
2. Munich, Germany
3. Berlin, Germany
4. Madrid, Spain
5. São Paulo, Brazil
6. Manchester, United Kingdom
7. Lisbon, Portugal
8. Singapore
9. Amsterdam, Netherlands
10. Washington, D.C.
Sven Franssen