10 Most Sustainable Cities in North American

Sustainability values are not just something reserved for the CSR business mandates of corporations. Cities and countries also promote its sustainability and, by doing so, appeal to citizens and attract tourism and business. I’ve delved into how Canada and it’s cities and businesses fair on the sustainability stage in posts like the 50 Best Corporate Citizens in Canada 2012, the 30 Top Green Organizations in Canada According to Employee Engagement, the 55 Greenest Canadian Employers, the 50 Top Diversity Employers in Canada, the Top 50 Canadian CSR Business List, Canada’s Top Employers for 2013,  the top 10 Canadian boards according to gender representation, the Top Canadian Boards According to Visible Minority and Aboriginal Representation, the 12 top countries represented in the Global 100: World Leaders in Clean Capitalism, the 10 Green Business Leaders the 10 best corporate citizens in Canada and the 10 top foreign corporate citizens in Canada. Today, I’ll be adding to this list with the 10 most sustainable North American cities from Corporate Knights (CK) 2013 North American Sustainable Cities Scorecard.

CK “is a media, research and financial products company focused on quantifying and animating clean capitalism drivers for decision makers.” This is the first North American Scorecard compiled by CK and it ranked the 20 largest cities in the United States and Canada. These 20 cities were measured on 27 key performance indicators in 5 categories “that since 2009 have represented our best attempt to measure sustainability the Corporate Knights way: along the social, environmental and economic pillars.”

The 5 categories are: environmental quality; economic security; governance and empowerment; infrastructure and energy; and social well being. They also included “new metrics like congestion and “walkability”, as well as cycling infrastructure, believing these affect citizens’ quality of life as well as economic and environmental performance of cities.” Based on the CK methodology used, the 10 most sustainable North American cities:

1. San Francisco, United States
2. Washington DC, United States
3. Ottawa, Canada
4. Vancouver, Canada
5. Toronto, Canada
6. Boston, United States
7. Seattle, United States
8. Philadelphia, United States
9. New York City, United States
10. Calgary, Canada

It should be noted that Mexican cities were omitted from their ranking due to “poor data availability.” The only other Canadian city to make the list was Montreal with a 14th place finish. This ranking highlights what large Canadian cities are doing right and also identifies the areas they can improve. It is also interesting to see where the strengths and weaknesses of the other cities included in the Scorecard lie. It’s encouraging that large urban areas continue to make sustainability a priority.

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