Here is an interview with Dave Day, The City's Director of Environmental & Safety Management.
Calgary takes the top spot as the world’s best eco-city, according to the Mercer 2010 Quality of Living Survey.
The new eco-city ranking identifies cities with the best eco-ranking based on water availability and drinkability, waste removal, quality of sewage systems, air pollution and traffic congestion.
“Calgarians can be justifiably proud that the world recognizes the quality of Calgary’s water and waste management systems,” says Dave Day, The City's Director of Environmental & Safety Management.
“At the same time, we must not rest on our laurels in pursuing equally challenging environmental goals, including realizing Council’s expectations for waste management and air quality.”
The report shows that standards of sustainability is essential for city living and forms a very important part of its inhabitants’ quality of living.
Mr. Parakatil, Senior Researcher at Mercer, said: “A high-ranking eco-city optimises its use of renewable energy sources and generates the lowest possible quantity of pollution (air, water, noise, etc). A city’s eco-status or attitude toward sustainability can have significant impact on the quality of living of its inhabitants.”
Calgary is at the top of the eco-city index (score 145.7), followed by Honolulu in second place (score 145.1) and Ottawa and Helsinki in joint third (score 139.9). The index uses New York City as a base, with a score of 100. The worldwide rankings are produced annually from the Worldwide Quality of Living Survey, conducted by Mercer. Mercer’s database of cities contains more than 400 cities.
According to its website, Mercer is a leading global provider of consulting, outsourcing and investment services. Mercer works with clients to solve their most complex benefit and human capital issues, designing and helping manage health, retirement and other benefits.
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It's great to be number 1, but at the same it isn't so great. As per the recent CBC article noting Calgary as toping noth New York and Mexico City in CO2 emissions per capita. So before we go tooting our horns there are still some areas we NEED major improvment in.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2010/04/06/calgary-un-report-carbon-dioxide-greenhouse-emissions.html
This is not quite true. Toronto's emissions are much higher in fact. Not surprising when one looks at the 401 "parking lot" with thousands of cars just idling there.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't believe, google around a bit. The stats and numbers were in the news sometime around 8-9 months ago.
Another unfortunate set back for Calgarians false sense of security...Thanks Mercer, for verifying that our blessed geographical proximity to high quality freshwater and our relatively young infrastructure and development sprawl manages to beat out the likes of New York (nice benchmark selection)...what an acheivement.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, Calgary is so, so, so far behind europe on sustainability, environmental issues. The city should be looking at sustainability in widest context, particularly Co2 emissions.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the infrastructure is so new, roads are so wide, so no congestion, and water comes from a shrinking glacier should be borne in mind.
How can we say we are "eco" when now we have to "wash" our garbage - a new water use we didn't have before our blue box program? If we have to ration water this summer, does our blue box program go on hold or do we still rinse our garbage and let our lawns / plants go parched?
ReplyDeleteWow, you must be spending a lot of time washing your garbage if you're concerned about water rationing as a result.
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous May 31:
ReplyDeleteI spoke to our Waste & Recycling group and they let me know that while they do ask people to remove any food from the recycling that citizens are placing in thier blue carts (food can contaminate the recyclable materials) they have never advocated for people to use additional water to rinse out their recycling for placement in blue carts.
Hope this helps.