Bristol is entering the race to be Europe’s top green city in 2014, one of 19 cities across Europe to apply.
Bristol last entered the race for 2010 when it was the only UK city to be short-listed. It was won that year by Stockholm and it is currently held by Hamburg. Among British cities rivalling Bristol this time are Newcastle and Stoke-on-Trent.
This is a joint bid by the City Council and the Green Capital Partnership – a consortium of leading businesses and green groups in the city, chaired by publisher Alastair Sawday.
Council Leader Barbara Janke said: “Bristol is in the vanguard of the green revolution in Britain. We were the only UK city to be shortlisted for this award last time and we have a very strong chance of winning the title in 2014.
“Businesses, individuals and organisations across the city have backed our ambitious green agenda. Everyone’s hard work is paying off, with major investment and jobs in environmental technologies and Bristol becoming an even greener place to live and work in.”
Mr Sawday said: “Bristol is buzzing with imaginative projects, and creative ideas, that reflect our ambitions to be a Green Capital city. A lively community has always acted as a stimulus to official thinking in Bristol, and our tradition of maverick entrepreneurship is underpinning a powerful drive to break with tradition and embrace new ideas.
“The Green Capital Partnership brings together the hundreds of organisations, businesses and individuals who are strongly behind the drive to reduce the city's vulnerability to the enormous changes coming our way. I am hugely impressed by the range of initiatives here – and the willingness to work together. Bristol is a city of vibrant green
communities and enterprising businesses – all lined up behind a Council that is now driving the changes.”
The bid papers highlighted the following projects:
- An energy efficiency programme which has improved more than 34,000 homes
since 2001 through insulation and new energy systems. This has is estimate to haveincreased the
energy efficiency of homes in the city by 30%.
- The council has reduced its own energy use by 22% since 2003 saving an estimated £430,000 a year in energy bills.
- The city has successfully improved its carbon efficiency by 40% from 2005 to 2009, producing 40% more value per tonne of carbon emitted by local businesses.
- The amount of waste the average Bristol resident now sends to landfill is 50% lower than in 2003/4, before food waste collections etc were introduced.
- In the last two years the council has provided grants to more than 20 groups through the Green Capital Community Challenge Fund.
- More than 1,200 trees have been planted in the past year with the objective of planting 10,000 by 2015.
- The city has added more than 60km of new cycle paths, improved 200km, and installed hundreds of cycle stands. Some 40% more people are cycling to work, helping to cut congestion and lead healthier lives.
- The city has an ambitious set of targets and plans to improve transport, with investment in new rapid transit, to make homes more energy efficient, to generate energy form the wind and sun.
The European Commission will announce the short-list of three cities next March, with the final announcement of the winning city in June 2012
Next year the European Green Capital will be Vitoria-Gasteiz in the Basque Country, followed by Nantes in France in 2013.
