There’s so much to be proud about in San Francisco: our friendliness, our beautiful skyline and architecture, our culinary prowess, to name just a few things. But now there’s something really important to feel good about: our status as the most sustainable city in the U.S., according to a study by Coworkingcafe, a network of curated coworking spaces.
To identify the cities that take the most action to promote cleaner, greener living, the study examined 12 different metrics such as air quality, green buildings, public transit usage, flood prevention investments, charging stations, percentage of green space, access to coworking spaces and recycling and bike/scooter share programs.
The number one ranking comes at a time when most of us are seriously worried about the climate emergency. In fact, 52 percent of Americans value protecting the environment even at the cost of economic growth for their cities, according to a Gallup poll (38 percent preferred economic growth even if it hurt the environment, while 4 percent were divided and 5 percent had no opinion).
Some of San Francisco’s strategies include a public transportation system used widely by commuters, BART and Muni; nearly a quarter of San Franciscans get to work this way. Among the city’s public transportation system, 68 percent of the options are eco-friendly, according to the study, and the aim is for an all-electric fleet by the year 2040. Another 3.4 percent of residents bike to work.
The city’s recycling program is available to 95 percent of households—and 65 percent of households use it. San Francisco spearheads its own citywide environmental policies through its Climate Action Plan. Community projects that support sustainable practices can earn grants to continue their strategies from a grant pool of $900k established last year. The grants were awarded for projects such as removing invasive species and planting native trees and plants in the Portola neighborhood, giving residents induction cooktops and cookware supplies to promote the switch away from natural gas and electric cooking, and teaching parents of newborns to use bottles and food containers free of endocrine disrupting chemicals.
Outside of San Francisco, California’s doing something right: The state won five out of the top 10 spots on this list (three of those spots are in the Bay Area).
These are the top 10 most green cities in the U.S.
1. San Francisco, CA
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Portland, OR
4. Los Angeles, CA
5. Seattle, WA
6. Oakland, CA
7. New York, NY
8. San Diego, CA
9. Chicago, IL
10. San Jose, CA