Highlights of the 2009 European Green
City Index include the following:
➔ Nordic cities dominate the index top tier.
Copenhagen leads the index overall, coming
marginally ahead of Stockholm, while thirdplace
Oslo rounds out a trio of Scandinavian
cities on the medal podium. Fellow Nordic capital
Helsinki follows in seventh place. Vienna,
Amsterdam and Zurich occupy fourth, fifth and
sixth places, respectively.
➔ There is a strong correlation between wealth
and a high overall ranking on the index. Nine of
the top 10 cities in the index have a GDP per
head (measured at purchasing power parity,
PPP) of more than €31,000. In many ways, this is
unsurprising: wealthier cities can invest more
heavily in energy-efficient infrastructure and
afford specialist environmental managers, for
example. Wealth isn’t everything, however: some
individual cities punch above their weight within
individual sub-categories: low-income Vilnius, for
example, leads the air quality category; while
Berlin, with a relatively low GDP per head, tops
the buildings category and is ranked eighth overall.
➔ Among east European cities (which also represent
the low-income cities of the index, with
GDP per head below €21,000), Vilnius performs
best of all, ranked in 13th place. It is followed
most closely by Riga, in 15th place. The rest of
the east European cities rank at the bottom of
the index. The wealth divide aside, these cities
also face the legacy of history, dealing with
decades of environmental neglect during the
communist period. This is most visible in the
poorly insulated concrete-slab mass housing that
was widely used, as well as the remains of highly
polluting heavy industry. Although many have
innovative ideas regarding specific environmental
initiatives, such as a “lottery” in Ljubljana that
promotes the sorting of waste for recycling,
these cities must also balance with other pressing
issues, ranging from unemployment and
economic growth to informal settlements.