The index shows little overall correlation
between city size and performance. However,
the leading cities in both the East and the West
do tend to be smaller, with populations of less than
1 million. To some degree, this makes sense: physi -
cally smaller cities make it easier for people to
cycle or walk to work, for example. However,
wealth, and more importantly experience, can
overcome the difficulties of size as policies that
take advantage of environmental economies of
scale, such as district heating or large public transport
networks, come into their own. Accordingly,
the index’s larger cities, with populations of 3
million or more, perform relatively well, generally
occupying the top half of the rankings. Berlin
does best overall (8th), followed closely by Paris
(10th), London (11th) and Madrid (12th). This
isn’t universal, though: Athens (22nd) and Istanbul
(25th) both perform relatively poorly.
➔ Cities with an active civil society perform well
in the index. Although it was beyond the scope
of this study to measure specific citizen engagement
in environmental issues, a strong correlation
exists between high-performing cities in
this index and other independent studies that
explore the strength of civil society in European
countries. The rank of a country in the voluntary
participation of citizens in organisations—from
religious groups to professional and charitable
bodies — was a strong predictor of the performance
of that country’s main city in the European
Green City Index. Of the applicable cities,
Copenhagen, Stockholm and Amsterdam featured
in the top places in both lists, whereas
Bucharest and Sofia fared poorly in both.
The complete results from the index, including
both overall rankings and individual rankings
within the eight sub-categories, follows
next. For insights into what some of the leading
cities have done to top the rankings within individual
categories, specific case studies are available
from page 22. Finally, detailed insights into
the individual performances of all 30 cities
included in the European Green City Index are
available within the city portraits section of this
report, starting on page 40. These explore both
the current status within each city on all eight
categories, while also highlighting past, current
and planned future initiatives to improve their
relative performance. The wealth and diversity
of initiatives detailed here provide encouraging
insights into the current directions that Europe’s
main cities are taking and their varying paths
towards a more sustainable future.