The United Nations (UN) has released a report showing that greening city urban infrastructure can sustain economic growth while using fewer natural resources.
The report ‘City-Level Decoup-ling: Urban Resource Flows and the Governance of Infrastructure Transitions’ included thirty cases showing the benefits of having gone green. The report was compiled during 2011 by the International Resource Panel (IRP), which is hosted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The findings show that investing in sustainable infrastructures and resource-efficient technologies in cities offers an opportunity to deliver economic growth, with lower rates of environmental degradation, poverty reduction, lower greenhouse-gas emissions and improved wellbeing.