The Arcadis Sustainable Cities Index is an innovative report that evaluates the sustainability efforts of 100 cities worldwide . It ranks their performance based on four core pillars: planet, people, profit, and progress. This year, the new “progress” pillar was introduced to track transformative changes and assess the impact of each city’s sustainability initiatives. And the great news for us is that Amsterdam tops the 2024 Index! Once again, we are incredibly proud of our city!
Amsterdam: Most Sustainable City in the 2024 Ranking
Arcadis is a leading global design and consulting firm for natural and built assets. Their 2024 Sustainable City Index is the sixth edition of the report since its launch in 2015. It includes 67 metrics that reflect our growing understanding of urban sustainability.
This year’s report is being released with just under 2,000 days remaining until the 2030 deadline for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report highlights significant differences between the most sustainable cities, such as Amsterdam (1st), Copenhagen (3rd), and Munich (5th), and those lagging behind, particularly U.S. cities like New York (48th) and Boston (56th), and Asian metropolises such as Taipei (62nd).
Amsterdam tops the 2024 Sustainable Cities Index and scores highly across all four pillars: 6th in the Planet category, 42nd in People, 1st in Profit, and 11th in the new Progress category. This demonstrates how cities can continue to implement sustainable improvements regardless of their overall ranking.
Amsterdam’s success is driven by the Climate Neutral 2050 Roadmap, which aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 95% compared to 1990 levels. This plan focuses on reducing energy consumption and emissions in key sectors such as buildings, transportation, energy, and industry, and calls on everyone to help achieve these goals. The city’s strong economic performance and social equality have also contributed to its top ranking.
Here are the top 10 cities in the ranking:
1- Amsterdam
2- Rotterdam
3- Copenhagen
4- Frankfurt
5- Munich
6- Oslo
7- Hamburg
8- Berlin
9- Warsaw
10- London
Finally, we see that European cities are leading the pack in the Sustainable City Index 2024. It is striking that two Dutch cities and all four of the German cities assessed have secured a spot in the top 10, demonstrating how far they have come in the areas of water treatment, waste management, and low greenhouse gas emissions. This underscores Europe’s leading position in the field of urban sustainability and serves as an example for cities worldwide striving for similar success. Well done!
You can download the full report here.
