London ranks fifth in latest Sustainable Cities Index by Arcadis, while Cairo and Kolkata named world's dirtiest metropolises
Zurich may be most famous as the beating heart of the global banking industry, but it is also the world's most sustainable city, according to a new global rankings released today by Dutch building consultants Arcadis.
The Swiss city performed the best across the ranking's three "pillars of sustainability" covering social, environmental and economic elements of city life.
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Overall, Zurich scored 74.6 per cent in the rankings, driven by a strong performance on environmental and economic performance. It was closely followed by Singapore, Stockholm, Vienna and London, which all scored above 73 per cent.
At the other end of the spectrum Cairo and Kolkata were named the worst performers, with their scores hurt by a lack of economic development and poor progress on environmental factors such as energy efficiency, carbon emissions, air quality and access to urban green spaces.
"A clear link between economic development and environmental sustainability is apparent," the accompanying report notes. "Therefore, cities in advanced economies are largely at the top while those in emerging and developing economies tend to cluster towards the bottom."
In the UK, London's place at number five in the rankings was driven by its position as an economic powerhouse, and its wealth of green spaces - London has more than 3,000 parks and green spaces, making it one of the greenest capitals in the world.
Meanwhile, US cities tended to score lower in the rankings against their European counterparts due to their higher per capita carbon emissions and lower amount of green spaces. San Francisco and Los Angeles, for example, scored 53rd and 60th respectively, well below major European rivals.
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