Fresh Loaf

Atlanta’s sustainability ranking is…better than nothing?

July 17, 2009 at 1:35 pm by Thomas Wheatley in News

The Natural Resources Defense Council, a well-regarded environmental nonprofit based in New York, this week released its list of the country’s most green, or sustainable, cities. Seattle received top honors, followed by San Francisco and Portland, Ore.

Compared to other cities with a population over 250,000, Atlanta ranked 33rd.

The rankings are based on, left to right: air quality, energy production and conservation, environmental standards and participation, green building, green space, recycling programs, transit, standard of living and water quality.

The ranking’s a bit disappointing when you consider how much energy the city’s invested in such initiatives as Sustainable Atlanta, the sewer overhaul and the Beltline. Those programs, however, are still far from completion. The city leads the country in the number of LEED-certified buildings, but that’ll only get you so far when you consider the programs such cities as Seattle and Chicago have launched.

Athens ranked 14th on the list of medium-sized cities. Roswell ranked 23rd among among smaller cities.

(Courtesy of NRDC)

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Tags: Beltline, environment, Green Atlanta, green-building, Greenspace, LEED, Sustainability, sustainable atlanta, Transit.

3 Responses to “Atlanta’s sustainability ranking is…better than nothing?”

1. BTI Says:
   July 17th, 2009 at 4:04 pm

   I’m too lazy to read the report and figure this out on my own, but it appears that under the little transit symbol, Atlanta, D.C. and Tampa(?) have equally sized dots. I’m assuming you’ve at least looked at the report, care to enlighten?

2. Thomas Wheatley Says:
   July 17th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

   BTI:

   I’m juggling the “water wars” story at the moment, but here’s what NRDC considered under the transit category. (I was also surprised by this ranking, as MARTA’s been locked in limbo for years in terms of expansion and service area.)

   Transportation

   * Survey: Number of green commuting options for citizens including bicycle paths, bike sharing, bus system, carpool lanes, car sharing, dedicated bicycle lanes, light rail, park and ride, sidewalks and trails, subway, trolley and other (8 points)
   * American Public Transportation Association: documented ridership for public transportation (2 points)

   You can read that information here. As with most of these surveys, the criteria and methodology are somewhat complicated. It submitted surveys to more than 650 cities. Only about 25 percent responded. I don’t know if Atlanta was one of those.

   The full explanation of how NRDC ranked the cities is listed here.

3. BTI Says:
   July 17th, 2009 at 10:02 pm

   thank you kind sir