OPEN ACCESS
The consequences of climate change urges researchers to investigate the issues of environmental sustainability, and the definition of policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) has become more urgent. In this context, urban areas play a significant role since here, economic, productive and social activities are concentrated and, therefore, the majority of the GHG emissions are produced. For these reasons, many cities worldwide are making big efforts to improve their level of environmental sustainability, but is this a worthy investment in terms of territorial competitiveness? In the era of globalization, indeed, countries, regions and cities cannot underestimate the competition against each other to attract firms, people and skills. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify the type of relationship between environmental sustainability and territorial competitiveness at the city level in order to verify whether or not it is possible to positively affect competitiveness by investing on green initiatives.
The study measures the level of environmental sustainability and competitiveness of 103 Italian capital cities by constructing two composite indicators and it compares the two performances using a statistical approach, showing that being green also means being more competitive and this positive relationship increases proportionally with the population. In other words, strategies designed to make a city more environmentally sustainable positively affect its level of competitiveness, and this correlation is stron- ger for bigger cities.
composite indicators, environmental sustainability, Italian cities, territorial competitiveness
[1] Camagni, R., On the concept of territorial competitiveness: sound or misleading? UrbanbStudies, 39(13), pp. 2395–2411, 2002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0042098022000027022
[2] Krugman, P., Competitiveness: a dangerous obsession. Foreign Affairs-New York, 73, pp. 28–28, 1994. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20045917
[3] Krugman, P., Making sense of the competitiveness debate. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 12(3), pp. 17–25, 1996. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/12.3.17
[4] Esty, D.C. & Porter, M.E., National environmental performance: an empirical analysis of policy results and determinants. Environment and Development Economics, 10(4), pp. 391–434, 2005. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1355770X05002275
[5] Rogerson, R.J., Quality of life and city competitiveness. Urban Studies, 36(5/6), p. 969, 1999. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0042098993303
[6] Turok, I., Cities, regions and competitiveness. Regional Studies, 38(9), pp. 1069–1083, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0034340042000292647
[7] Hu, R., Sustainability and competitiveness in Australian cities. Sustainability, 7(2), pp. 1840–1860, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su7021840
[8] Panayotou, T., Economic Growth and the Environment (No. 56). Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2000.
[9] Esty, D.C. & Charnovitz, S., Environmental Sustainability and Competitiveness: Policy Imperative and Corporate Opportunity, Harvard Business School, 2011.
[10] Camagni, R., Capello, R. & Nijkamp, P., Towards sustainable city policy: an economyenvironment technology nexus. Ecological Economics, 24(1), pp. 103–118, 1998. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(97)00032-3
[11] Esty, D.C., Levy, M.A., Srebotnjak, T., de Sherbinin, A., Kim, C.H. & Anderson, B., Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index, Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy: New Haven, 2006.
[12] Un-Habitat, State of the World’s Cities 2008-2009: Harmonious Cities, Earthscan, 2008.
[13] Berardi, U., Sustainability assessment of urban communities through rating systems. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 15(6), pp. 1573–1591, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10668-013-9462-0
[14] Egger, S., Determining a sustainable city model. Environmental Modelling & Software, 21(9), pp. 1235–1246, 2006. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2005.04.012
[15] Mori, K. & Christodoulou, A., Review of sustainability indices and indicators: towards a new city sustainability index (CSI). Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 32(1), pp. 94–106, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2011.06.001
[16] Scipioni, A., Mazzi, A., Mason, M. & Manzardo, A., The dashboard of sustainability to measure the local urban sustainable development: the case study of padua municipality. Ecological Indicators, 9(2), pp. 364–380, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2008.05.002
[17] Annoni, P. & Dijkstra, L., EU Regional Competitiveness Index, RCI 2013, European Commission. Joint Research Centre, 2013.
[18] Papa, R., Gargiulo, C., Franco, S. & Russo, L., Measuring the effects of the 2008-09 financial crisis on the competitiveness of Italian provinces, Sustainable Recovery? Rebalancing, Growth, and the Space Economy, Regional Studies Association Winter Conference, pp. 193–199, 2014.
[19] Papa, R., Gargiulo, C., Franco, S. & Russo, L., Urban smartness Vs urban competitiveness: a comparison of Italian cities rankings. Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, Special Issue, pp. 771–782, 2014.
[20] Giddings, B., Hopwood, B. & O’brien, G., Environment, economy and society: fitting them together into sustainable development. Sustainable Development, 10(4), pp. 187–196, 2002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sd.199
[21] Salvati, L., Gargiulo Morelli, V., Weijnen, M., van Bueren, E., Wenzler, I. & De Reuver, M., Towards intelligently - sustainable cities? Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 6(1), pp. 73–86, 2013.
[22] Pope, J., Annandale, D. & Morrison-Saunders, A., Conceptualising sustainability assessment. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 24(6), pp. 595–616, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2004.03.001
[23] Drexhage, J. & Murphy, D., Sustainable Development: from Brundtland to Rio 2012, United Nations Headquarters, New York, pp. 9–13, 2010.
[24] Rogers, P.P., Jalal, K.F. & Boyd, J.A., An Introduction to Sustainable Development, Earthscan, 2012.
[25] Aliberti, M., Measuring urban sustainability. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 16, pp. 381–424, 1996. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0195-9255(96)00083-2
[26] Lall, S., Competitiveness indices and developing countries: an economic evaluation of the global competitiveness report. World Development, 29(9), pp. 1501–1525, 2001. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(01)00051-1
[27] Dijkstra, L., Annoni, P. & Kozovska, K., A new regional competitiveness index: theory, methods and findings. European Union Regional Policy Working Papers, 2, 2011.
[28] Schwab, K. & Sala-i-Martin, X., The global competitiveness report 2014-2015, World Economic Forum: Geneva, 2014.
[29] Di Mauro, F. & Ronchi, M., Assessing European competitiveness: the contribution of CompNet research, European Central Bank, 2015.
[30] Joint Research Centre-European Commission, Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicators, OECD publishing, 2008.
[31] Singh, R.K., Murty, H.R., Gupta, S.K. & Dikshit, A.K., An overview of sustainability assessment methodologies. Ecological Indicators, 9(2), pp. 189–212, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2008.05.011
[32] Böhringer, C. & Jochem, P.E., Measuring the immeasurable—a survey of sustainability indices. Ecological Economics, 63(1), pp. 1–8, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.03.008
[33] Hsu, A., Johnson, L.A. & Lloyd, A., Measuring Progress: A Practical Guide From the Developers of the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy: New Haven, 2013.
[34] Porter, M.E., The competitive advantage of notions. Harvard Business Review, 68(2), pp. 73–93, 1990.