Boston is 6th in a Ranking of 27 Cities for Sustainability
Friday, July 29, 2011
The “U.S. and Canada Green City Index” is the result of a research project conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a division of the Economist Magazine, comprising a detailed evaluation of the environmental performance of 27 North American cities according to 9 specific categories. Boston’s “Report Card” looks like this:
Category Rank Grade CO2 11 79.3 Energy 2 82.4 Land Use 4 74.9 Buildings 10 62.1 Transport 17 (50.2) Water 2 (91.8) Waste 15 54.7 Air 14 74.3 Environmental Governance 15 84.4
What accounts for Beantown’s strong showing? Maybe it’s the salaries (GDP per person = $57,100), or its compact downtown and consequent efficient land use policies, or low energy and water use per capita. But the Report Card reproduced above suggests that it is all this and more, a well-rounded and consistent approach that maintains all categories except Transport at 15th or above in rankings. Carbon emissions are 12 metric tons per person whereas the index average is 15. Our electricity consumption is 41 gigajoules of electricity per person while the index average is 52. And Boston’s density of 13,400 people per square mile is the third highest amongst the cities included in the index.
Is the study meaningful? Not all metrics appear to be. For instance, in the category of building performance, the sole criteria is the ratio of LEED certified buildings to population. Perhaps this is the simplest way to evaluate sustainability in buildings, however it certainly is not the most accurate, given the widely varying performance results of LEED certified structures.
The biggest surprise for Boston is the poor ranking of our transportation services. Here multiple metrics were employed, and Boston performed poorly by most of the criteria applied. With only 0.3 miles of public transit per square mile Boston is well below the index average of 1.1. Similarly Boston has only 0.8 public transit vehicles per square mile while the index average is 9. But further explanation of these criteria would be helpful. Much of Boston’s transportation system is regional. Is the entire Metropolitan area included in this calculation? Because the Metropolitan area extends from Rhode Island to New Hampshire the actual performance of our public transit system may be better than these numbers suggest.
Boston’s best score in the index is water consumption: only 74 gallons per person per day in comparison to an index average of 155 gallons. There are various explanations for this accomplishment, the second best in the index, but a rate of water leakage of 9% compared to the index average of 13% is perhaps the most significant.
The publication of the Green City Index establishes more than just a ranking and the opportunity for bragging rights. Above all it establishes the criteria by which urban centers can be evaluated for sustainable performance. As these criteria are refined and performance monitoring becomes more systematic the rankings, scorings, and performance analyses will become more meaningful. As competition between urban centers for sustainability status increases Boston is in a good position to improve its ranking, with several strengths and significant potential to improve.