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Enigin News - Australian Cities are Livable but not Sustainable

Enigin News - Australian Cities are Livable but not Sustainable

“Australia’s major cities consistently rate among the most livable, but live ability is not the same as sustainability,” said Australian Conservation Foundation’s (ACF) executive director Don Henry, adding:

“Australians use more water and energy and own more cars per person than the citizens of almost any other developed country.

“Many decades of being wasteful with resources, combined with booming population growth, poor planning and a lack of infrastructure investment has come at a real cost to our economy, society and environment.

“Our cities could be transformed into clean, efficient places.....(with) happier, healthier residents.”

The northern Australian city of Darwin and the eastern coastal city of Brisbane beat other Australian capitals, but overall no Australian city did well in the ACF’s first sustainable cities ranking.

The Sustainable Cities Index monitors the progress, if any, of the 20 largest cities in Australia.

The ranking is based on 15 indicators including air quality, ecological footprint, green buildings, water, biodiversity, health, density, wellbeing, transport, employment, climate change readiness, education, food production, public participation and household debt.

Darwin ranked high because of good air quality, robust biodiversity but other non-environmental issued helped as the city has low levels of unemployment and household debt, while it lost points on health and preparedness for climate change.

At the bottom of the rankings was the Western Australian capital of Perth, due in part to a very high ecological footprint per capita.

The two most populated cities Sydney and Melbourne came twelfth and seventh respectively.

Enigin's Distributors across Australia are helping many businesses and public organisations to reduce their CO2 output by saving and managing energy use, saving money in the process.

Contact your local Enigin Distributor to find out how they can help you save money by saving energy and improving the environment.

Picture by yeowatzup

Wednesday 16th June 2010