According to 2005 State of the World Cities Report the global urban population has quadrupled since 1950, and cities of the developing world now account for over 90 per cent of the world’s urban growth. In 2005, the world’s urban population was 3.17 billion out of world total of 6.45 billion. Annual urban growth rates are highest in sub-Saharan Africa (4.58 per cent), followed by South Eastern Asia (3.82 per cent), Western Asia (2.96 per cent) Southern Asia ( 2.89 per cent) and Northern Africa (2.48 per cent). Developed World’s cities are growing at 0.7 per cent a year. This will bring along even more competition for the available scarce resources.

Cities are major industrial sites, centres of production, and concentrations of human population. This makes them major energy consumers with over 75% of energy consumption directly related to cities. Though cities have been sighted as major contributors to climate change, they are also centres of innovative solutions for curbing climate change. Vienna city’s eco-friendly initiative has been rated by the Best Practices and local leadership Programme of UN HABITAT as an outstanding innovation in Environmental protection. Here is the success story.

“Oekokauf Wien” Vienna’s Eco-Business Plan
Vienna is the capital of Austria, and also one of the country’s nine states. Vienna is by far the largest city in Austria. It has a population 2.2 million within the wider metro area, of which the city proper population is 1.6 million. The city is highly industrialized and is also the economic, political and cultural centre of Austria.

On 5th November1999, the Vienna City Council adopted the City’s Climate Protection programme (KLIP) as a framework for the Eco-Business plan. It was introduced to help enterprises operate and generate profits through eco-friendly practices that benefit both the environment and the enterprises. The initiative is a partnership between the city administration, interest groups, companies and management consultants. The project aims to promote: environmental protection strategies, efficient use of resources, sustainable
development, information exchange and effective relationship between city administration and the private sector.

“Oekokauf Wien” has compiled catalogues of ecological guidelines for almost the entire range of production and services required by the City of Vienna. Based on these, simple methods were developed for improved assessment of products and services from an ecological point of view, without neglecting the quality requirements or compromising on quality. The checklists, guidelines and specifications contained in the catalogues support the purchase of environmentally friendly products and services.

To date, 527 enterprises have participated in the Eco-Business plan, implementing more than 9,000 environmental projects. These enterprises have been able to generate savings totaling about 30 million Euros. In addition, there has been reduction of solid waste output by 109,300 tons, reduction of toxic solid wastes by 1,325 tons, energy savings of 138.7 million Kwh, carbon dioxide emission has been reduced by 42,765 tons and 1,325,000 cubic meters of drinking water has been saved.

The Eco-Business plans have attracted the attention of other cities. It is currently being implemented in Chennai, India and Athens, Greece.

As Kofi Annan put it, The much publicised Kyoto protocal is not a magic bullet, it is a step towards the right direction. It is such contributions that make a change.