Despite the recent dispute over waste collection and the litter that has been scattered over the city’s streets, Brighton has been determined to be one of the greenest cities in the country thanks to a study conducted.
A big conflict to this result was the fact that as recently discussed, Brighton has a poor recycling rate compared to other cities with a large portion of the recyclable waste being either incinerated or going to landfill.
In the study, the 25 biggest cities based on population density were compared against a total of 17 predetermined criteria, which found that Brighton came out fourth overall.
This picked up on recycling, with Brighton’s 30% rate being trumped by Manchester, Hull and Bristol who all recycle a much larger 50%,
With 37% being the national average, Brighton therefore falls well below the standard expected despite being the only city to live under Green Party leadership.
Overall, Sheffield came first with its continuous attempts to reduce emissions and be a net-zero carbon city by 2050 being clearly backed up by action.
Following that, Edinburgh came in second, with Cardiff third, followed by Brighton and then Bristol rounding off the top five.
Brighton did score very highly in many of the actual categories, with coming first in the least number of commuters to travel by car and then second in the lowest amount of energy used per person.
One place Brighton did fall behind was in the use of ultra-low emissions vehicles, green space, and the production of green energy to help power the city.
The study itself was considered comprehensive and marked NatWest bank’s integration of carbon footprint tracking into its personal banking app, a first step by any bank to help track a customer’s personal carbon footprint based on their daily spending habits and financial activity through their bank and its software.
Photo Credit: Aaron Burden
