Global urban sustainability benchmarking

Abstract

A new strategic direction for ‘greening’ our cities and making them smart to reduce the environmental impact of their performance, increase employment and economic viability and enhance the quality of life requires a thorough assessment of sustainability and smart urban performance. This chapter considers a database of over ninety global cities including London, New York, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Los Angeles, São Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, Beijing, Seoul, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo, exploring linkages between different sustainability and smart city dimensions. To assess urban sustainability performance, the chapter applied a multi-criteria approach using a panel of twenty indicators to a set of fifty-seven global cities. The assessment comprised important aspects of energy transitions, focusing on the drivers of CO2 emissions in cities, including the share of coal in the energy mix, public transport and cycling patterns, waste recycling, the water-energy nexus as well as the role of smart and creative economy. The results have shown San Francisco leads under economic and environmental priorities, and Stockholm under social and smart city priorities. Seoul consistently performs very successfully across the whole spectrum of indicators. We devote considerable attention to strategies, policies and performance of the leading cities: San Francisco, Stockholm and Seoul. The assessment could be a valuable tool for policy makers and investors, and could help identify linkages between different sustainability dimensions as well as investment opportunities in cities with sustainability potential.