Most Eco-Friendly Cities in the World
10. Oslo, Norway
Eco-efficiency is important in this city, and it begins with grass-roots involvement. Oslo residents are encouraged to clean up, go green, and create a climate that features better air quality, eco-efficiency, biodiversity, and an abundance of clean, natural resources. The streets of Oslo look fantastic, due to local contributions being made to keep the area sustainable and highly-functioning for all of its residents.
9. Stockholm, Sweden
Stockholm is among the cleanest cities in the world. It was the first city to win the European Green Capital Award, and it has a noble long-term plan to be fossil fuel free by 2050. The riverside city is stunning and features lots of natural landscape, such as beautiful trees navigated by cycling paths. Environmental policies are prioritised in Stockholm, and as such, the streets are clean and the urban city has a country-like feel to it, despite having tall buildings and a large number of residences.
8. Columbia, Missouri, United States
Investing the time to become an eco-friendly city certainly has its benefits, such as energy reduction which in turn lowers costs and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. In Columbia, Missouri, businesses are incentivised to improve their energy efficiency though a city-wide grant system. Columbia’s City Green program determines how much energy a particular business uses, and then offers to pay for half the cost of an energy audit. Once the audit is completed, the city will pay for repairs up to $12,500. To keep the city looking great, Columbia has a number of green groups, which are coalitions of like-minded people who collaborate to achieve common environmental goals. These groups clean rivers, restore animal habitats, and promote beautification, restoration, and citywide recycling.
7. Vancouver, Canada
Vancouver’s most notable performance is in the area of CO2 emissions. In The Green City Index, Vancouver boasts the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita of any city. Additionally, the city’s ecological goals include reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent and planting 150,000 new trees by 2020, making it one of the greenest cities on the map both literally and figuratively speaking.
6. Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban, South Africa
These three towns in Africa all share a spot on the greenest cities list. It is very hard to pick just one city since all these three are very strong in different categories. For example, Cape Town and Johannesburg is said to have most green spaces in the whole continent. While Durban managed to take a lead because of its target to become a zero-waste city within 20 years and carbon neutral by 2050.
5. San Francisco, United States
San Francisco used to be a capital city of the Hippy movement, but it would be wrong to say that this is the only reason this city is one of the greenest around the globe and the most ecological in North America. This city was the first in the United States to introduce the coloured bins recycling system to homes and workplaces, making recycling easy and accessible, and more importantly — legally obligatory. The fantastic public transport system and government’s encouragement for people to use more electric cars also helped San Francisco to be one of the eco-friendliest cities in the world.
