Jo'burg gets green thumbs-up

Johannesburg has a reputation for being the world's biggest manmade forest, boasting more than 10 million trees, says News24, but with the ever-present mine-dump dust, the ongoing threat of acid mine drainage and the bleak landscapes, not to mention the traffic jams, at first glance Johannesburg is not an ideal contender for South Africa's greenest city.

And yet, a new study commissioned by Siemens, in which the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) was tasked with compiling the African Green City Index to help understand urban sustainability, found that Johannesburg leads the pack in cutting down on electricity and planting trees, although its citizens still use an excessive amount of water and few bother to recycle. According to News24, the study observed 15 cities in Africa - Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban, Casablanca (Morocco), Tunis (Tunisia), Alexandria and Cairo (Egypt), Accra (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Nairobi (Kenya) and Maputo (Mozambique).

The 15 cities were compared on environmental performance and policies across categories such as energy, carbon footprint, land use, transport, waste, water, sanitation, air quality and environmental governance. Dr Paul Kielstra, contributing editor of the EIU, gave City Press a preview of how well Johannesburg scores - "The City of Johannesburg is one of the greenest cities in the index and ranks above average overall," he said. Parks Tau, mayor of Johannesburg, said the city would build a green economy into its growth plan.

Read the full article on www.news24.com.