Australian cities aren't sustainable, according to the Australian Conservation Foundation’s (ACF) first sustainable cities ranking.
Out of all cities, Darwin and Brisbane performed the best.
ACF’s Sustainable Cities Index tracks the progress of Australia’s 20 largest cities across 15 indicators: 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 scored well with clean air, strong biodiversity and low levels of unemployment and household debt, but lost marks on health and preparedness for climate change.
Perth came last due to a very high ecological footprint per person and the amount of water supplied to houses relative to annual rainfall. While Perth’s public transport system is better than many cities, it still scored poorly on transport, with 641 private vehicles for every thousand people.
Melbourne came seventh, while Sydney came 12th. Most cities were clustered around the middle of the scoring range.
"Australia’s major cities consistently rate among the most liveable, but liveability is not the same as sustainability," says ACF executive director, Don Henry.
"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."
