Scaling sustainability solutions, city by city
How would one design the world’s most sustainable city—with carbon emissions near zero by 2050—and how could one be sure it deserved that accolade? While it’s easy for urbanists to daydream of combining Amsterdam’s cycling infrastructure with Singapore’s rainwater capture and Vienna’s bountiful social housing, the cumulative effect of such policies remains difficult to measure, let alone manage. This shouldn’t be the case.
Cities may be unique in their cultures and legacies, but they are built from the same materials, traversed by the same kinds of vehicles, and populated by more than half of humanity (and growing). Scoring, sharing and scaling up the best policies among them is essential to achieving the targets of the Paris agreement in time to limit future global warming to below 1.5˚C.
“With less than seven years left to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, establishing a gold-standard measure of urban sustainability performance is an urgent priority,” says Maimunah Mohd Sharif, executive director of UN-Habitat. Without such a standard for calculating the impact of urban innovations, along with advances in deployment, public-sector leaders are left guessing which pathways to pursue—and private-sector investors remain hesitantly on the sidelines.
To address these challenges, UN-Habitat has worked with Economist Impact to develop the Urban Performance Index (UPI), a tool for comparing and contrasting the policies and progress that participating cities have made towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Based on the UN’s Global Urban Monitoring Framework, the index will measure performance across such variables as well-being, safety, inclusive growth and governance, as well as the environment. Beginning with five self-reporting pilot cities (Dhaka, Lisbon, Mombasa, Tijuana and Toronto), the aim is to scale to 80 cities in the second edition of the index, and over time to more than a thousand—all learning from each other and striving for excellence.
Cities are both the largest source of the climate crisis and the likeliest bearers of the climate disaster, now and in the future.
They contribute more than 70% of global greenhouse-gas emissions—an outsized share relative to their populations, and one that has only grown since 2015. The construction sector alone accounts for almost 40% of global resource demand, including commodities such as steel and concrete. Conversely, around 70% of global cities already suffer from climate impacts ranging from regular coastal flooding and erosion to extreme weather events that force an estimated 20m people from their homes each year.
Trillions of dollars are needed annually to finance urgent mitigation, adaptation and rebuilding efforts, yet cities only received an estimated $384bn in climate finance in 2018— less than a tenth of the necessary amount. One aim of the UPI is not only to document which cities are succeeding in growing their economies while meeting the SDGs, but also to demonstrate the return on investment of technologies and infrastructure, ranging from rooftop solar panels to passive house construction to dedicated cycling lanes. The hope is to redirect private capital towards proven sustainable urban development that is still seen as risky in the absence of an index. “Businesses have always been instrumental in scaling and monetising solutions,” says Ms Sharif. “This is where they can come in and deliver impact.”
While one can dream of cities of the future, local leaders must meet the needs of the people they serve today. They must change the narrative about cities and show that cities offer solutions. This requires collaboration— learning, copying and financing what works as quickly as possible. “As the African proverb says,” notes Ms Sharif, “if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.”
Around 70% of global cities already suffer from climate impacts ranging from steady coastal flooding and erosion to extreme weather events.