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Bristol could be Europe's green capital |
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23 May 2012, 6:19 PM
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Bristol is in the running to be voted European Green Capital - for the second time ! Representing the UK in the race for the title in 2014, the city of Bristol will be up against fellow finalists Copenhagen and Frankfurt. The current holder of the crown is the small city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain, while Nantes, in France, represents 2013.
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If its bid presentation on 8 June is successful, Bristol will be the first ever UK city to achieve this status. It will learn whether it has won the title three weeks later, at a ceremony in Nantes. Established by the European Commission in 2008, the award is given to a city that:
Has a consistent record of achieving high environmental standards
Is committed to on-going and ambitious goals for further environmental improvement and sustainable development
Can act as a role model to inspire other cities and promote best practices to all other European cities.
Key highlights, which will form part of Bristol’s bid include:
· A recycling rate that has reached 49% – the highest in the UK
· A landfill rate that has been cut by a fifth to just 40%. By 2013 it will be zero.
· Investment of £23m over the last two years in a new cycling infrastructure, which positions Bristol as the UK’s leading cycling city. Cycling trips are up by an astonishing 63%.
· The development of a thriving environmental technology and services sector, which has over 1800 businesses employing 17,500 people.
· 250 community and voluntary groups and enterprises in the city – from collectives that work on nature reserves through to community food-growing projects and energy co-ops.
· The creation of the award winning Festival of Nature, now the largest science festival in the UK. The festival engages over 50,000 people in sharing and discovering the natural world and is being rolled out around the country.
· The establishment of Big Green Week, Europe’s largest free natural history festival, including the world’s first electric bike championship.
· 700 mini recycling centres serving 32,000 households.
· Business carbon emissions reduced by 23% between 2005 to 2009.
· A £450m capital investment into the city council’s new energy security and climate change strategy.
· £262m assigned to low carbon transport planning, including a rapid transit bus network and 200 electric car points.
· Plans to create a municipal energy services company to deliver a £300m investment programme of energy efficiency and renewable energy by 2020.
Optimistic of success, and to raise awareness of Bristol’s achievement, 23-year-old local green design agency boss Rollo Lewis is cycling 1,182km over 15 days solo from the city to the 2013 Green Capital, Nantes in France, where the 2014 award will be presented on 29 June.
Martin Bigg, chair of the Bristol Green Capital Partnership which is fronting the bid, said: “We are a very much an ordinary European city in terms of our size and capabilities but we have some extraordinary stories to tell. Who would ever, for example, have imagined a city full of hills such as ours could be recognised as the UK’s first cycling city.
“Through a lot of hard work, investment and collaboration with local communities Bristol has, despite its industrial roots, become the most waste, energy and carbon efficient major city in the UK.
“Rollo’s is a great example of a business that is located here because of our sustainable credentials. Bristol has been committed to the sustainability agenda for many years so we are more than pleased that we have made this shortlist with a bid that we believe represents the best case for replicability in Europe – encouraging other small to medium sized cities who perhaps view sustainability targets as out of their reach to aspire to this award.”
Nineteen cities entered the 2014 European Green Capital award and, on the basis of their environmental performance in 12 categories, just three were chosen to go through to the next stage, including Bristol. It is the second time Bristol has been shortlisted and it is still the only UK city to ever be shortlisted for this prestigious award. Only one other European city has ever been shortlisted twice.
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| Positive review of this story |
JuliusBeezer  |
26 May 2012, 12:04 AM |
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Is 'Green Capital' a meaningful concept? The news that Nantes (where I live) is to be "green capital of Europe" in 2013 surely gives a lie to the judgement of the powers-that-be that award such status.
With the new airport well underway, Nantes' status as "Green capital" merely besmirches this "title."
As we like to say round here: "La demagogie, c'est maintenant; l'ecologie c'est demain"
Why build a new airport when you've already got a perfectly good one running at approximately 50% capacity only 500m from the existing tram network?
If the title Green Capital of Europe is to be meaningful, then Nantes should be stripped of it, not awarded it, unless they cancel the new airport.
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