Good news out of Germany. Note the impact of deposits on bottles.
Bottle deposits have ensured consistently high recycling rates for PET bottles in Germany according to a new 2015 study on the usage and recycling rates of PET beverage bottles in Germany. PET bottles are recycled at a total of about 93.5 percent, while one-way deposit PET bottles have reached a whole 97.9 percent. The industry is also continuing on its aim of supplying more recycled PET into the materials cycle, with the average share of recycled PET in bottle production increasing compared to 2013 despite the adverse price development in recycled compared to virgin PET. The recycling process largely takes place in Germany.
“PET bottles take the lion’s share in recycling rates compared to other forms of packaging,” says Dr. Isabell Schmidt, director of the Forum PET
within IK Kunststoffverpackungen plastic packaging that commissioned the
study. In particular, one-way deposit PET bottles increased slightly on what was already a very high recycling rate of 97.2 percent as calculated in the first edition of the 2013 study, reaching a rate of 97.9 percent in 2015.
High return rate keeps materials cycle going Forum PET explains this development with deposits placed on disposable bottles. “Consumers keep the material cycle running at a high level by returning bottles, much to the benefit of the environment,” says Schmidt.
The recycling system deals with 98.8 percent of deposit bottles according to the study, most of which customers return via reverse vending machine.
With this in mind, Forum PET endorses continuance with the deposit system. On average, 95.7 percent of all PET bottles are collected separate – the remainder is disposed of in the household waste for conversion into energy.
The beverage industry is chiefly responsible for recycling used PET bottles with just over a third – 34 percent – of the recycled material used in manufacturing new PET bottles. The proportion of recycled PET used increased in bottle production even with the price gap between virgin and recycled PET decreasing from the 2013 figure of 46 percent. The year 2015 saw PET bottles containing an average of 26 percent recycled materials compared to 24 percent in 2013. “We would have hoped for an even higher increase, but we have to appreciate the PET industry’s commitment all the more considering the adverse price development,” says Schmidt; “The industry is committed to sustainability.”
Increased proportion of recycled PET predicted
Further increases in recycled PET levels within the recycling cycle is only a matter of time according to the study, with an increase in PET recycling capacity already on the horizon. Lower price volatility alone would encourage more use of recycled PET, which has already passed the 55 percent mark by a significant margin in some disposable PET bottles.
Contrary to common assumptions against PET, the PET material cycle mainly takes place in Germany, as 2015 saw 80 percent of used PET recycled domestically. Quantities exported were mainly used in neighbouring countries, and the numbers are falling.
This study has included figures for PET beverage bottles except milk and dairy, and covered the entire PET bottle value chain from production and consumption to collection, return, export and recycling, summarising PET usage in beverage packaging in Germany in a closed materials cycle in absolute quantities. The study relied on bottle collection in Germany as well as interviews in the PET processing industry. The study was commissioned by Forum PET and conducted by the GVM packaging market research association.
Rhode Island, as you may know, installed the first major wind offshore project in the US. That system is in phase one. It will expand soon to phase 2.
Not surprising Mass is pushing to catch up. New England does a great job, as you've heard on our shows, of coordinating best practice around efficiency and clean energy. Wind is a great renewable. Good to see a master plan worked to ignite growth in construction, jobs and better, local sources of power.
Massachusetts Preps for US Offshore Wind Construction Boom
ByJennifer Runyon
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), a ratepayer
funded research organization that works to accelerate the success of
clean energy technologies, companies and projects in the state, last
week announced plans to conduct a study of potential offshore wind
construction facilities in Massachusetts. The Offshore Wind Ports &
Infrastructure Assessment will review underdeveloped waterfront sites in
Massachusetts that could potentially be acquired and developed through
private investment to support both near-term and long-term offshore wind
activities. According to Bill White, Director of Offshore Wind Development for
MassCEC, the study will serve the needs of the various developers who
have committed to building offshore wind
in federal waters off the coast of Massachusetts. DONG Energy,
Deepwater Wind and Vineyard Wind currently hold leases that could be
developed into offshore wind farms. “A number of the developers in the supply chain for offshore wind
have indicated that they are going to need additional locations to do
various activities,” said White in an interview. Those activities
include foundation staging, locations for operations and maintenance
activities and even potential manufacturing sites down the road, said
White. The study will be conducted by Ramboll Environ, a global
environmental and health consulting firm with 2100 consultants working
across 130 offices in 28 countries. Ramboll has been very active in the
development of the thriving European offshore wind industry – having
participated in the design and/or construction of more than 65 percent
of the offshore wind farms currently in operation. According to White, the study will evaluate 20 locations in
Massachusetts for their viability and will then provide a detailed
engineering assessment – based on lessons learned from the EU – about
the opportunity these sites hold and risks involved in developing them. White emphasized that while the study is looking at specific sites in
Massachusetts, he believes the information obtained in the study could
easily be transferred to another state. “Our purpose and our intent here is that this would be a roadmap for
the industry,” said White, adding “the expectation would be for private
investment in these sites.” Massachusetts utilities are required to purchase 1600 MW of offshore wind power by 2027. In related offshore wind power news, PennWell corporation announced
last week that it is launching a new executive conference designed to
bring the experienced U.S. offshore oil and gas industry together with
the emerging offshore wind industry. The Offshore Wind Executive Summit
will run from August 9-10 in Houston, Texas and is the first event
designed exclusively to bring these two industries together for
information exchange and networking.
We like diversity in consumer products. One size does not fit all. Competition is good for buyers. Hence, good to Toyota \marketing a hydrogen car. CA has done a good job of building out fueling stations. If there this has to be a top car for you to look at.
Toyota has a message for anyone who still doubts the potential of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles: Lalalala we can’t hear you! The company is set to launch a major new ad campaign for the Mirai sedan, its signature venture into the fuel cell mobility market, that consists of 37 billboards spread across Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Billboards generally get a bad rap as eyesores, and in that regard a billboard campaign doesn’t exactly square with an environmental theme. But Toyota devised an unusual twist that makes a logical connection between outdoor advertising and a zero-emission car.
Hydrogen marches on
For those of you new to the topic, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are just that: electric vehicles. The difference is that conventional EVs use batteries, which have to be recharged periodically. Fuel cell EVs generate their own electricity on the go. They need to be fueled up periodically with hydrogen.
Battery EVs have a jump on the zero-emission mobility market, thanks partly to the public relations genius of Tesla’s Elon Musk.
Toyota is among a number of legacy automakers that are making the push for fuel cell EV technology. The bet is that although fuel cell EVs are pricier now, they could compete with battery EVs for market share over the long run as costs go down.
The new Mirai billboard campaign will run from April 3 to May 28. And here’s the kicker: The new billboards will “reverse the equivalent of 5,285 vehicles worth of nitrogen dioxide (NOx) emissions per month,” Toyota said in a press statement.
That’s not a magic trick. The billboards will be clad in vinyl coated with titanium dioxide, which acts as a kind of catalytic converter. Here’s the explainer from Toyota:
“When oxygen reacts with the energized titanium dioxide catalyst, NOx is converted to nitrate and removed from the air. The light-activated, smog-reducing billboards continue to purify the air as long as light, humidity, airflow and the titanium dioxide coating are present.”
In another interesting twist, the billboards are provided by Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, which comes under the umbrella of the mega-company iHeartMedia, formerly known as Clear Channel.
Under the George W.Bush administration, Clear Channel established an affinity with the right side of the American political spectrum, a relationship that has continued (think: Rush Limbaugh).
The hookup with Toyota takes Outdoor Americas in a different direction. In a prepared statement, Outdoor Americas EVP and Senior Regional President Gene Leehan hinted that the company is interested in a more expansive approach:
“We are pleased to offer our environmentally-conscious clients, like Toyota, an even more eco-friendly printed vinyl option for their Out-of-Home (OOH) media campaigns … This campaign marks a U.S. first for the use of this technology on OOH, and we look forward to making it available to other like-minded advertisers.”
The pollution-scrubbing technology comes from PURETi Group, which has an exclusive usage agreement with Clear Channel Outdoor Americas for the outdoor category in the U.S.
PURETi has also lent its technology to a campaign in the U.K. for Naked Juice, marking the first time that the beverage company has used outdoor advertising.
Here's another example of too much of a good thing. Depleting our fish stock is dangerous and disastrous. We have the tools to manage supplies. This has been a looming problem for awhile. Greed kills. Over consumption leads to depletion. Now what, New England? Massachusetts scientists say they have reached the same conclusions as their federal counterparts in a study about the poor status of cod fish in the Gulf of Maine.
BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts scientists say they have reached the same conclusions as their federal counterparts in a study about the poor status of cod fish in the Gulf of Maine.
The Boston Globe reports the scientists found the region’s cod are at a historic low of about 80 percent less than the population from a decade ago.
Micah Dean oversaw the survey for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. He says he hopes fishermen who doubted federal government’s science on the issue will find the results credible.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker commissioned the survey last year after fishermen voiced concerns that the federal government was relying on bad science and exaggerating the cod’s distressed status. The state spent more than $500,000 trawling for cod as part of the study.
This is really an interesting approach to energy. In some states it is ILLEGAL to compete with utility companies. Hard to believe, and time to change. Here's a good example of what can happen if we, as consumers, get unshackled from old, antiquated regulations and tariffs.
Lets Neighbors Trade Energy Among Themselves
Patrick Schnell, a participant in the Brooklyn Microgrid, with solar panels on his roof in Gowanus.Credit
Kevin Hagen for The New York Times
Brooklyn is known the world over for things small-batch and local, like designer clogs, craft bourbon and artisanal sauerkraut.
Now, it is trying to add electricity to the list.
In
a promising experiment in an affluent swath of the borough, dozens of
solar-panel arrays spread across rowhouse rooftops are wired into a
growing network. Called the Brooklyn Microgrid, the project is signing
up residents and businesses to a virtual trading platform that will
allow solar-energy producers to sell excess-electricity credits from
their systems to buyers in the group, who may live as close as next
door.
The
project is still in its early stages — it has just 50 participants thus
far — but its implications could be far reaching. The idea is to create
a kind of virtual, peer-to-peer energy trading system built on blockchain, the database technology that underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
The
ability to complete secure transactions and create a business based on
energy sharing would allow participants to bypass the electric company
energy supply and ultimately build a microgrid with energy generation
and storage components that could function on their own, even during
broad power failures.
“Community
members can work both individually and collectively to help meet demand
in an efficient way,” said Audrey Zibelman, who recently resigned as
chairwoman of the New York State Public Service Commission, which
regulates the state’s utilities.
The
project is but one example of how rapidly spreading technologies like
rooftop solar and blockchain are upending the traditional relationships
between electric companies and consumers, putting ever more control in
the hands of customers. Across the globe, upstart companies like LO3
Energy, which is designing the Brooklyn experiment with the industrial
giant Siemens, are building digital networks that offer the promise of
user-driven, decentralized energy systems that can work in tandem with
the traditional large-scale grid or, especially in emerging economies,
avoid the need for a grid at all.
In
Australia, where Ms. Zibelman will soon run the nation’s energy
markets, a company called Power Ledger announced the start of a
residential electricity trading market based in blockchain last year at a
housing development in Perth.
In Bangladesh, where an estimated 65 million people lack access to a central grid, ME SOLshare
has been developing peer-to-peer trading networks of rural households
with and without rooftop solar systems. Producer-consumers there — known
as prosumers — can sell excess power into the network, where
neighboring homes and businesses can buy it in small increments with a
cellphone.
And
in Germany, Sonnen, a leading supplier of home batteries and smart
energy products and services, has created a web of about 8,000
customers, both with and without solar on their roofs, who are trading
their stored energy among one another.
“Peer-to-peer
is slowly but surely becoming a reality,” said Olaf Lohr, Sonnen’s head
of United States business development. “This really is a very
disruptive technology. The customers are also the owners — they are the
producers of the energy. There is no centralized feed-in from one big
power plant.”
In
New York, the Brooklyn microgrid is conceived to work with the
conventional grid, which is in the midst of a reboot under Gov. Andrew
M. Cuomo’s directives to make it more flexible, resilient and
economically efficient while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. That
effort, known as Reforming the Energy Vision, or REV, includes encouraging the development of microgrids and more active community participation.
The
ideal power system, said Richard L. Kauffman, who as the governor’s
chairman of energy and finance is leading that effort, is one that
combines large power plants and transmission lines with clusters of
smaller-scale producer-consumers, “where electrons can flow in more than
one direction and supply and demand of electricity is dynamic — and
that’s different than the grid is today.”
Peer-to-peer
power sharing is consistent with that vision, he said, though a number
of regulatory changes are necessary for it to take off.
The
State Public Service Commission has already taken a few of them,
including last week approving new ways to determine pricing for
electricity from renewable energy projects that more accurately reflect
the value to the grid based on geographic location, timing and other
factors yet to be determined. But Lawrence Orsini, LO3’s chief
executive, said the state still needed to determine how to define his
company and its network of participants before it could get its market
up and running, a move he anticipates by June.
“There’s
nothing technically infeasible about what we’re doing,” he said. “In
order for transactive energy to take off as a whole, regulators have to
be comfortable that markets can actually work this way and, more
importantly, that people want markets like this.”
Over
the past year, LO3 has been working to find those people, using Google
Earth to identify homes with rooftop solar installations and then
knocking on doors to enlist participants, with some success throughout
Park Slope and Gowanus.
On
a block of President Street last year, the company carried out two
sales of green electricity credits generated by one homeowner’s solar
system to a neighbor across the street — tiny transactions, but
important in proving the concept’s viability.
Those
sales involved test versions of renewable-energy credits — numbered
certificates that are used to track electricity exported from a
renewable system to the grid. Utilities, corporations and other
customers can buy the credits to claim green energy use.
In
the Brooklyn case, LO3 used the credit sales, conducted over PayPal, to
test its approach; it cannot legally buy and sell electricity until
regulators determine its market status. Once that occurs, Mr. Orsini
said, the company will be able to facilitate the trading of energy among
its participants — though they would still pay the utility, Con Edison,
for infrastructure fees and services, as customers now do when they
choose to use a green energy supplier through the utility.
Mr.
Orsini’s team is busy collecting data from meters installed in prosumer
homes, measuring production, use and export of the solar electricity to
help model the market. They are also testing a smartphone app that
customers will be able to use to manage their electricity purchases,
setting parameters to control the source — selecting from a range of
conventional, renewable, local and bulk options — as well as how much
they are willing to spend.
Mr. Orsini said he expected that most users would want to make their choices and then let the system take over.
“No
one wants to day-trade energy,” he said. “You’re giving something to
people that they haven’t ever had before, and that’s really a way to
personalize their energy consumption.”
That
is the aspect that appeals to a number of the participants, including
Garry Golden of Windsor Terrace, a futurist who consults for a variety
of businesses, including electric utilities and infrastructure
companies. Mr. Golden installed solar as part of a group purchase that
proved so popular with his neighbors that almost a dozen systems are
within view of his roof, forming an attractive cluster for the microgrid
experiment.
“We
need to make energy a product and a service that people can purchase on
their own and not rely on a large centralized entity,” Mr. Golden said.
He added that it was important to build out infrastructure that would
be able to better withstand disasters, both natural and man-made.
Other participants echoed that concern.
“The
long-term goal is to be at least partially independent of the grid in
emergencies, which was a reasonable argument to join,” said Patrick
Schnell, whose Gowanus basement flooded during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, though he did not lose power. “Hopefully it will expand and more people will join and it will be more worthwhile.”
The
project includes plans to create a roughly five-square-block area —
either around a collection of public housing projects or near a hospital
— that could disconnect from the grid and operate independently in case
of a power failure.
“It’s
a recognition of energy needs beyond your own,” Mr. Golden said.
“There’s a microgrid of our community, and that’s great, but the
hospitals, the clinics, the schools, large housing complexes — you can
feed the energy where it needs to go.”
We love articles that do a deep dive on the potential good/bad of public policy changes. We've already weighed in, generally, on our view of Trump's push to elevate coal power and cut back on environmental protection. The writer here, Leon Kaye, finds key components that will have long-term adverse impact on us. OK, so how should the US market respond to Trump's order? First, we work on a local/state level to prevent installation of power sources that threaten our eco system. We buy smart. We support renewable expansion. We demand accountability from every company in terms of their impact on our health. And we refuse to turn back the clock by supporting an industry not in step with today's technology.
Most energy analysts and experts agree that the demise of coal is tied to the natural gas boom. Nevertheless, Trump followed through with one of his most notable campaign promises. At the signing ceremony, he was flanked by several coal miners and administration officials at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters.
Among the many rules and provisions Trump’s latest executive order will reverse, one that deserves significant attention is the social cost of carbon, or SCC. Used by government agencies when assessing the impact of new regulations and investments, the SCC could include costs tied to human health, agriculture, property and fluctuating energy prices.
As Noah Kaufman of the World Resources Institute explained on TriplePundit earlier this month, SCC dates back to 1981, when the new Ronald Reagan administration required all federal agencies to crunch the financial numbers of proposed regulations implementing them.
Since the Obama administration convened a group of technical experts to finalize a set of SCC costs, such accounting has become more streamlined. Although the actual costs vary, the EPA estimated that they will rise over time as future emissions will most likely cause greater environmental and economic damage.
Most environmental experts polled by the Institute for Policy Integrity said the most used SCC price, $36 per ton of carbon, is too low. But as Kaufman and other analysts insist, such an estimate at the very least can help guide policymakers on the costs and benefits of implementing environmental regulations.
Without this metric, former White House economist Joseph Aldy says there is no way to gauge the long-term financial impacts of new or rescinded regulations – and one result is a government that is less transparent.
Investors and environmental groups attacked the executive order as misguided and one that ignores ongoing shifts in America’s energy industry and indeed its economy.
“Today’s actions are a wholesale attack on decades of bipartisan work in addressing the very real threat of climate change,” Mindy Luber, head of the investor group Ceres, said in a public statement on Tuesday.
“By taking this backward step, the U.S. risks a stalled transition to a low-carbon economy, thus giving China and other countries the upper hand as they embrace renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies that are proliferating all across the globe.”
Former U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, now head of the consultancy Waxman Strategies, said the order kneecaps America’s leadership on climate change over the past decade:
“We don’t know how much today’s announcement from the Trump administration will hamper the deployment of wind, solar and other renewable energy, or whether and how much it will slow the transformation of our energy sector,” Waxman told 3p.
“We do know that our future is in clean, renewable energy technologies, and that we need to hurry that transition. Today’s announcement does compromise our nation’s ability to lead on international efforts to stop climate change. This is undoubtedly a step in the wrong direction.”
Other organizations pointed out that the social cost of carbon is a way for policymakers to not only gauge the impact of new environmental rules domestically, but also measure the costs and benefits of international climate resilience spending. Climate change is, after all, a global problem that requires worldwide cooperation.
The NGO Oxfam described Trump’s latest directives, particularly the dismissal of SCC accounting, as a reversal of policies that will hit poorer communities in the U.S. and abroad the hardest.
In an email to 3p, Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, described the executive order as a “misreading” of the economic opportunities climate action can present: “The social cost of carbon is a sensible tool to prudently factor those very real economic costs into government decision-making. Ignoring those costs won’t make them go away.”
Describing Tuesday’s action, or grandstanding, as a handout to the president’s billionaire oil and gas friends may come across as simplistic and a cheap shot. But the order ignores the stubborn facts of the U.S. energy industry.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, less than 25 percent of the U.S. oil supply is imported – and 40 percent of that amount comes from Canada, making Trump’s promise to boost “energy independence” hollow. And accounting for the social cost of carbon has helped fuel the U.S. clean energy sector – which, according to a recent report, now employs more people than the fossil fuels sector in the vast majority of U.S. states.
We get asked "what is good policy...green companies...smart cities...".This story does a good job of focusing on the latter. Easy to see common strategies and investments here: reduced emissions on transportation, efficient buildings, sourcing renewables and preserving water and other natural resources. Theses cities are an environmental and financial success. Is there a message there? Of course. People are flocking to these urban centers because they are enhancing quality of life while enjoying tremendous economic gains. Their commitment is 100%. No equivocating, swinging back on political winds. There is collaboration across all major sectors of their community. It is all oars in the boat rowing in the same direction. We are reminded, too, that local governments do not need to cede control to national political centers. Every city and town, and every person, can exercise independence, and determination, in helping to build a global cleaner, brighter future. Let's go.
Find out what these five cities are doing to fight the climate crisis and improve the lives of their citizens
For centuries, cities have been at the heart of the arts and culture, thriving businesses, and innovative ideas. Over ninety percent of urban areas are coastal, which means that most cities on the planet are extremely vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis as sea levels rise, polar ice melts, and powerful storms sweep across these regions.
The sheer number of people who live in cities now and who are expected to move into them in the coming years is startling. Around two-thirds of the world’s population is predicted to live in an urban area by 2050, which means there are also major financial implications when extreme weather like unexpected storms and flooding cause disruptions in businesses and governments.
The good news is that while cities are particularly at risk from the climate crisis, they are also behind some of the most powerful solutions. That’s why we’re taking a look at five of our favorite sustainable cities in the world and the steps they’ve taken to become leaders in clean energy and climate solutions.
1. COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
Copenhagen is often ranked as one of the greenest cities on the planet. Why? For starters, in 2009 the city set a goal to become the world’s first carbon neutral capital by 2025 as part of its CPH 2025 Climate Plan. Copenhagen has focused on reducing energy consumption in a variety of ways, including using an energy-efficient district heating system that connects to nearly every household and innovative cooling systems that save around 70 percent of the energy compared to traditional air conditioning.
Copenhagen has also focused on reducing emissions and improving the health of its residents by improving mobility, integrating transport, and building what’s known as a super cycle highways. Super cycle highways and other bike lanes around the city have led to 45 percent of the city’s residents commuting by bike every day.
2. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
It’s no secret that San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area are a serious tech-hub and home to some of the most innovative companies in the world, including Salesforce, Airbnb, Uber, and Twitter. Innovations in technologies to improve energy efficiency in buildings and enhance its transportation system have helped make San Francisco a leader in sustainability and clean energy. Just look at the city’s public transit system: it’s not uncommon to see hybrid-electric buses driving down the city’s streets and more than half of all MUNI buses and light rails are zero-emission.
The Bay Area has also cut its water consumption drastically in recent years. As California has battled serious droughts, San Franciscans have reduced their water consumption to around 49 gallons of water per day on average (the national average is 80-100 gallons per day).These conservation tactics and other advances in sustainable food, recycling, and composting are expected to help San Francisco reach its goal of becoming zero waste by 2020.
3. VANCOUVER, CANADA
Vancouver has been on the forefront of environmental activism for decades. In 1990, it became one of the first North American cities to outwardly address the climate crisis by releasing a report called “The Clouds of Change.” This was just the beginning of an environmental strategy that Vancouver released years later in 2012, the Greenest City Action Plan, which set 10 goals to achieve by 2020, including increasing green jobs, reducing community-based greenhouse gas emissions, and expanding green buildings around the city.
Additionally, Vancouver has committed to getting 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050. This goal is particularly bold given that it targets all forms of energy in the city—including heating, cooling, and transport—not just electricity. The city’s focus on clean energy and sustainability has led it to have the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per person of any major North American city. Between making sustainable improvements to neighborhoods’ energy consumption, striving for zero waste, and continuing to develop its successful Greenest City Action Plan, Vancouver has set the stage for businesses and residents to work together to be one of the greenest and most climate change resilient cities on Earth.
4. STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
Stockholm is a growing city that seeks to be an attractive home for newcomers and do good for the planet at the same time. Awarded the first “European Green Capital” recognition by the European Commission in 2010, Stockholm aims to be fossil-fuel free by 2050.
How does the city plan to reach this goal? One component is Sweden’s shift from oil to “district” heating, which means the nation now uses heat from centralized sources (such as a power station) to more efficiently heat and cool its buildings. District heating alone accounts for over 80 percent of heating and hot water in apartments today, and is one of the key factors in how Sweden has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions in recent years.
Another reason for Stockholm’s success with sustainable living is its residents, who pride themselves on being “climate-smart.” Eight out of 10 residents feel the city should urge citizens to live more environmentally-friendly and believe being climate-smart should be a natural part of living in a city (we do too!).
5. SINGAPORE
With a population of more than five million people, Singapore is often recognized as one of the most forward-thinking green cities in Asia. The city-state has developed a Sustainable Development Blueprint, which outlines sustainability goals leading up to 2030. The targets include improving energy efficiency by 35 percent, ensuring 80 percent of its buildings are certified green, and having 80 percent of households be within a 10-minute walk to a train station.
Singapore has also improved its sustainability by making drastic changes in transportation. The city-state limits car ownership among its residents and has built effective public transportation systems, which has helped reduce pollution and crowding on streets and highways. Singapore’s public transit system helps residents navigate the city, along with biking and walking.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OTHER GREEN CITIES
These are just five examples of cities that have become leaders in clean energy and sustainable development. To learn more about additional sustainable cities and how they’re working toward solutions to the climate crisis, download the Cities100 guide. The Cities100 guide shares 100 solutions from 61 cities in 10 different sectors, ranging from clean energy to transportation to social equity and more.
