Greener Streets: Which UK cities are making the biggest eco-friendly improvements?
An eco-friendly Earth is the ultimate goal, but climate change is still taking hold. With the Climate Clock continuing to count down steadily, it’s crucial for us earthlings to protect our planet - but we must act fast.
While our cities are the hubs of culture and lifestyle, many UK cities are densely populated, meaning they aren’t so great when contributing to the health of our planet.
To help the UK reach Net Zero, making green improvements within our cities is vital, but exactly what improvements are cities across the UK taking to aid our planet and stop the decline?
To find this out, we’ve researched and analysed greenhouse gas emissions, ULEV ownership and publicly-available EV charging points from every city in the UK, to reveal which ones have made the most positive improvements in recent years, helping us get closer to achieving eco-friendly city status nationwide.
What Are The Greenest UK Cities?
To narrow down our list of the greenest UK cities (cities making the most improvements overall to making their streets greener), we only considered cities with ‘Clean Air Zones’.
What is a clean air zone? These are targeted areas in a location with an overall aim to improve air quality and help support economic growth.
After giving cities ‘points’ across their air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, ULEV ownership and publicly-available EV charging points using our scoring system, Glasgow came out as the UK’s greenest city, by making the most improvements to having greener streets.
Although air quality and greenhouse gas emissions in Glasgow have increased slightly over the years, efforts towards increasing ULEV ownership and facilities for these helped it climb to the top of the list - with a 425% increase in ULEV ownership (from 276 in Q1 2020 to 1,448 in Q1 2023) and a 218% increase in publicly available EV charging points (3.5 per capita in 2020 to 11 per capita in 2023).
Following Glasgow was another Scottish city, Aberdeen, in second place, and Birmingham in third place.
Interestingly, of the top 10 cities making the most improvements to having greener streets in the past few years, 4 out of Scotland’s 8 cities featured. The Scottish Net Zero Roadmap (2021-2022) outlines plans to achieve net zero emissions five years ahead of the rest of the UK (by 2045).
From these findings, it’s clear to see that this plan is in action.


Which UK City Has Increased The Amount of Publicly Available EV Charging Points The Most?
As the number of EV owners surges across the nation, there comes a need for more publicly available charging points to help accommodate current and future EV drivers with getting from A to B.
In a new survey conducted by Group 1 Automotive - which asked EV owners across the nation about their charging habits - it was revealed that most (45%) EV drivers charge their vehicles for an average of 45 minutes every time they use a public charging station.
While this may not seem like an unordinary amount of time, with the number of EV drivers only expected to grow, cities must have adequate facilities to deal with an increasing demand. So, which UK cities are making the most increases to their number of charging points to accommodate?
Our research found that Brighton and Hove is leading the way with EV charging point improvements, with a whopping 1833% increase in the number available from 2020 to 2023 - 5.8 available per capita (100,000 people).
Following Brighton and Hove was Birmingham (956% increase), then Bath and North East Somerset (740% increase).
Which UK Cities Have Reduced Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions The Most?
Research from the Carbon Brief this year revealed that the UK's overall greenhouse gas emissions fell by 5.7% in 2023 - the lowest recorded level since 1879.
So, while it's clear to see that, overall, the UK is making improvements towards reducing emissions, which city in the UK is doing the best - and worst?
Looking specifically at greenhouse gas emissions improvements by city in recent years (from 2020 to 2021), our research revealed that Kingston Upon Hull has made the greatest improvement in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, with an 8% decrease from 2020-2021.
Following Kingston Upon Hull was Liverpool and St Albans in joint second place, both with a 3% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.
However, our research found that some cities haven’t moved the needle much in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, some have gone in the opposite direction.
When looking at the top 10 worst cities, our research shows that Dundee City has had a 24% increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the worst increase amongst all UK cities (147.9 ktCO2e in 2020 compared to 184.1 ktCO2e in 2021).
Similarly, in second-worst place was Lincoln, with an overall 23% increase, then Aberdeen, with a 22% increase.

Methodology
To determine which cities in the UK have made the most improvements over the past few years to make their streets greener, we analysed publicly available data on air quality, ULEV (Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) ownership, publicly available EV charging points and greenhouse gas emissions.
Each metric listed above is ranked by percentage index, with 100 being the best-performing location for that metric and 0 being the worst. The sum of the collective ranks provides the overall top-performing locations e.g. A rank with 4 metrics would produce a top-performing location with a maximum score of 400.
Air quality data shows differences from 2020 to 2022. Greenhouse gas emissions data shows differences between 2020 to 2021. ULEV ownership data shows increases from 2020 to 2023. Publicly available EV charging points data shows increases from 2020 to 2023.
Data from Gov.uk and IQA only includes cities with clean air zones.
Which UK cities are making the most improvements to having greener streets