Doha’s sustainability performance held back by environmental factors

Doha finished fourth out of the eight Middle East cities covered in this year’s report and 72nd overall

September 15^th 2016: Doha is making good progress in becoming more socially and economically sustainable however a number of environmental issues still need to be addressed, according to the 2016 Sustainable Cities Index from Arcadis, the leading global Design & Consultancy for natural and built assets.

The study was compiled for Arcadis by the Centre for Economic and Business Research (Cebr) and explores three core pillars of sustainability – social (people), environmental (planet) and economic (profit) to develop an indicative ranking of 100 of the world’s leading cities. The overall index is informed through an analysis of 32 different indicators and is also broken down into three sub-indices across each pillar.

Doha finished fourth out of the eight Middle East cities covered in this year’s report and 72^nd overall. The city scored relatively well in the people and profit categories with major investment in both transport and social infrastructure, as part of Qatar’s 2030 National Vision, beginning to pay dividends. However, Doha finished 98^th based on the environmental indicators, which dragged down the city’s overall sustainability ranking.

Jack Overkamp, Managing Director, Arcadis Qatar said: “Doha is much younger than most cities and as such deserves tremendous credit for the progress it has made over the last twenty years. The future looks even brighter as the city’s ambition to build a presence on the world stage, including hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, will see continued investment in transport infrastructure and in making the city an easier place to do business. The 2030 National Vision also includes a sharp focus on improving human development, and the new education and healthcare facilities due to come online will offer citizens an even better quality of life.”

“It’s not a huge surprise that Doha scores lower on the environmental indicators within the study given the city’s heritage in the oil, gas and petrochemicals industry, its natural climate, and the volume of energy that’s required to power the city’s continued development. This will all improve as the city matures and within the 2030 Vision we also see a clear commitment to offset this environmental impact with investment in areas like green technology and cleaner energy sources” added Overkamp.

The overall ranking for the eight cities in the Middle East in this year’s report are as follows:

The full findings from the global report can also be viewed here: Sustainable Cities Index 2016

Significant variation in sustainability performance of many GCC cities:

This year’s report highlights that cities within the Middle East are living at extremes and many exhibit divided personalities, scoring particularly well in some areas but poorly in others. This is most apparent in the profit sub-index where cities are placed as far apart as 4^th (Dubai) and 97^th (Amman) globally.

These extremes are also notable at an individual city level with clear differences across the three sustainability pillars.  As an example, Dubai and Abu Dhabi excel in the profit arena where they lead the region and sit in 4^th and 13^th place globally. However, they perform poorly on the planet sub-index coming in 95^th and 96^th in the world and lower than anywhere else in the region apart from Doha.

Muscat tells another story of contrasts, placing in the top ten globally on the people sub-index but ranking 85^th in the world for economic sustainability. Similarly, Amman scores lowest in the region for profit (97^th globally) and people (71^st globally) but it leads the region on planet (55^th globally). Where there is a degree of consistency for the Middle East cities, is around low environmental sustainability scores. This is partially attributable to the climate, the vast reserves of fossil fuels, but also the fact that cities in growth mode typically have a larger carbon footprint as investment drives higher energy use.

John Batten, Global Cities Director at Arcadis said: “Our index shows that all cities around the world face their own urban challenges and none of them can yet claim to have earned the title of being a completely sustainable city. Understanding the interplay between the physical, social and economic systems can help a city to achieve a more effective balance and a stronger sustainability performance.”

Cities in the Middle East have younger populations on average:

All of the cities in the Middle East have comparatively young populations compared with other parts of the world. Doha has the highest median age in the region (35.6 years) whilst Amman is the youngest (23.1 years). This should hold these cities in good stead in the future as a significant portion of citizens will remain in the labour force for longer, enabling faster growth than can be achieved in older economies.

This year’s report recognizes that all cities in the study are at various stages of evolution, some further along their sustainability journey than others. Established European cities lead this year’s index, occupying 16 of the top 20 places, however they enjoy a clear advantage due to a more moderate climate and an economically balanced population. Developing cities in other regions contend with more extreme climates and rapid urbanization, whilst a lack of financial resource continues to inhibit their overall performance.

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