The UK’s first European Green Capital. England’s first Cycling City. An almost Green Party council and a Green Party MP in the area. Yep, there’s no doubt that Bristol is an environmentally friendly city. But where does it sit among the UK’s greenest cities?
To find out, The Co-operative Bank recently carried out research that ranked UK cities based on key factors—such as air quality, green spaces, recycling rates, green jobs, conservation funding, and cycling infrastructure. In the end, Bristol took home the bronze medal.
In particular, Bristol stood out for its commitment to cycling, with an incredible 2,611 cycle routes (23.7 cycle routes per square km)—including one of our favourites, the Bristol and Bath Railway Path. The city also had excellent recycling rates (47.25%), although its air quality score was low compared to some other cities.
Surprisingly, Reading was crowned the greenest city in the UK, thanks to its air quality (77.22), green space (42.04%) and over 700 cycle routes. Meanwhile, Sunderland took second place, with the second-best air quality (87.5) despite having only 26.69% green space; the city also had a high number of green jobs and conservation projects.
On the other end, ranking the lowest out of 22 cities, London was found to be the least green city in the UK, due to its poor air quality (36.87), amount of green space (22.29%) and low recycling rate (22.42%). And beating second-to-last Birmingham to the bottom by some way.
The UK’s greenest cities:
- Reading
- Sunderland
- Bristol
- Newcastle upon Tyne
- Nottingham
- Leicester
- Kingston upon Hull
- Middlesbrough
- Stoke-on-Trent
- Leeds
To delve deeper into the data, you can read the research in full here.