Transcription
This video was kindly sponsored by the Nick Mourne Foundation. After the overwhelming response we got from our first sustainable cities video, it was suggested that we should create a follow-up video to dive deeper into the key aspects that make a city sustainable. So that is exactly what we'll be doing in this video.
Cities are the hubs of our modern lives, providing homes, workplaces, educational systems, and the infrastructure to support large communities of people. However, as the world's population continues to grow—up to 68% of people are expected to live in cities by 2050—requiring 80% of global resources and generating ever-increasing levels of carbon emissions. In order to combat these issues, we need to make societal changes on a near unimaginable scale. Creating eco-conscious living spaces across the world's ever-expanding cities is a challenge facing countries across the globe. But with sustainability becoming increasingly important in modern life, some cities have already undertaken huge steps towards creating a greener future. And in this video, we are going to show you the sustainable cities which are making the biggest impact.
Welcome back to Going Green. Today's video is going to be broken down into five key topics covering transport, green spaces, food production, energy, and waste. And for each of these topics, we'll be sharing with you some of the cities that are making the largest changes.
As populations continue to grow, cities must also continue to adapt and transform their transport systems, creating access to affordable and sustainable public transport options and creating safer spaces for cyclists. Gothenburg in Sweden is a great example of a city that is dedicated to improving its public transport and creating a wave of green options, boasting travel by buses, trains, trams, and boats. 65% of the city's transport options use energy from renewable sources, with 200 electric buses serving 34 different routes across the city, as well as electric ferries. Gothenburg has also introduced electric refuse trucks, helping to not only cut down on emissions but also lower noise pollution, allowing for less restrictive collection times and hopefully creating a cleaner city for all.
Another great example of a city promoting green transport is Portland, Oregon, in the United States. With over 250 miles of bike paths, 25% of city workers commute by bike, carpool, or public transport, with eight percent of the population using cycling as their main transport method—the highest level of bicycle commuters in any American city. Amsterdam and Copenhagen are also notoriously known for their sustainable transport options, but you can learn more about these two cities in our previous sustainable cities video.
With high amounts of pollutants being generated daily in city centres, it is vital that we find a way to improve our air quality by providing green spaces such as parks, ponds, and woodlands. The plant life introduced can absorb carbon from the air, turning it back into oxygen and refreshing our air quality. Green spaces also provide a habitat for wildlife, leading to more biodiversity within the city, as well as creating therapeutic spaces for the community and improving mental health. Vienna, Austria, is leading the way for green spaces in cities, ensuring its residents the right to high-quality green and open space that will be maintained in the future. Fifty percent of the city is dedicated to this belief, and this green space is spread across 2000 parks, as well as forest and agricultural land. Vienna additionally hosts 135 farmers' markets every year, selling food and produce from the surrounding areas, helping residents to cut their carbon footprint by purchasing locally sourced ingredients.
Globally, cities consume three-quarters of the world's energy and are responsible for eighty percent of greenhouse gas emissions. The scale and rate of this consumption is a major challenge for both existing and developing cities. But luckily, many locations around the globe are adapting and developing new inventive ways to create their energy supply. In Denmark, the city of Copenhagen is leading the way, using its energy supply in smart and sustainable ways, and it's home to the world's largest and most successful district heating system. The system works by capturing the excess heat from electricity production, which is then distributed through a network of pipes, delivering the heat to 90% of households within Copenhagen. Additionally, they have also introduced district cooling, using a similar system that uses the cold water of the harbour to chill the water that is then delivered to its customers. Zurich, Switzerland, has also taken strong measures to reduce its carbon footprint and focus on energy efficiency. The city has introduced tight restrictions on its carbon emissions, and as a result, 80% of the energy utilized by the city comes from renewable sources.
By the year 2050, the world will need to produce twice as much food whilst reducing greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds. To combat the rapid population growth, in order to do this, cities must find new ways to feed their citizens, focusing on local, sustainably grown food. Helsinki, Finland, has a rich heritage of urban farming, with allotments dotted across the city, some of which dating back as early as 1918. These allotments can be leased out to residents, and the walking paths that run through them are designated to public parkland. More recently, however, there's been a push for more carbon-neutral urban farming, with residents taking up growing crops on rooftops or even in so-called sac gardens, creating small farming spaces with old industrial sacks.
Every day, the world produces more than 3.5 million tons of plastic and other waste, which has a direct impact on the health of people and the environment. To ensure the health of our planet, we need to invest and adopt appropriate waste management technologies which can help communities to improve their recycling systems and prevent waste from ending up in landfill. The city of San Francisco in the US has introduced bold public policy and educational initiatives, allowing them to divert 1.6 million tons of waste from landfill, recycling an incredible 77% of their waste stream. It was also the first city in the U.S. to introduce a ban on single-use plastic bags. Ultimately, the city hopes to continue this push for sustainability by recycling, composting, and reusing more so that nothing ends up in landfill.
These cities continue to set a global example. As growing numbers of governments and people adopt greener, more sustainable policies for their cities, we can truly begin to reduce our impact on the planet, efficiently use the resources we have, and create a better world for us all. Let us know down in the comments below if you think we missed out any key sustainable cities. Be sure to give us a thumbs up if you'd like to see more videos like this from us. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you in the next one.