The 10 Greenest Places To Live In Europe & 15 Amazing Eco Facts

As we all know, climate change is one of the biggest challenges the world has ever faced. However, several countries and cities are tackling this head on with various sustainable initiatives relating to air cleanliness, eco transport and CO2 emission targets to name a few.

With this in mind, our team at RecyclingBins.co.uk thought it would be appropriate to compile a list of the greenest places to live in Europe. We commissioned a small research piece and infographic that received coverage from leading publishers including The Independent.

The study sequences all of the best places to live in Europe, the key facts and stats and below you can also read some of our favourites across all the featured cities including recycling rates, biogas initiatives, public transport and many more.

Here is the top ten list:

• Copenhagen
• Stockholm
• Hamburg
• Vitoria-Gasteiz
• Nantes
• Bristol
• Ljubljana
• Oslo
• Brussels
• Nijmegen

It’s no surprise that Copenhagen is consistently named one of the best places to live in the world and not just because of the pastries, Denmark’s capital city is leading the way when it comes to sustainability.

Copenhagen has placed public-private partnerships at the centre of its approach to eco-friendly innovation and employment. From this piece of work there were a number of amazing facts that were uncovered.

Here are of some of my favourites:

• Copenhagen: 90 per cent of waste is reused.
• Oslo: has more electric cars per capita than any other city in the world.
• Bristol: almost a fifth of residents walk to work.
• Nijmegen: sewage not considered waste, but rather a valuable source of raw materials, energy and reusable water.
• Hamburg: 99 per cent of residents have access to public transport within 300m of their homes.
• Vitoria-Gasteiz: has over 130,000 trees in the city streets.
• Copenhagen: 55 per cent of residents cycle to work or school.
• Nantes: 15 per cent of daily travels are made using public transport.
• Bristol: homes have become 25 per cent more efficient over the last decade.
• Ljubljana: around 75 per cent of the city’s surface is covered with green areas.
• Oslo: aims to make public transport fossil fuel-free by 2020
• Brussels: waste has been reduced 20 per cent since 2000
• Nijmegen: home heating network, based on waste heat, covers approximately 14,000 households.
• Hamburg: 200,000 low-energy lamps in 400 public buildings save €3.4m per year.
• Nijmegen: city buses are fuelled with biogas.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this piece as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it.

References: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/winning-cities/previous-finalists/index.html http://www.siemens.com/entry/cc/en/greencityindex.htm