Buffalo Is One Of The “Greenest” Cities In The Country

October is National Energy Awareness Month.  So when it comes to conserving energy, how "Green" is Buffalo?  They might have ranked higher than you think.

What does it mean to say a city is "Green?"

According to Wallethub, green living is defined as "a choice to engage in cleaner, more sustainable habits in order to preserve the planet as much as possible."  That could entail anything from better recycling programs, using more fuel-efficient vehicles for public transportation, and even converting old spaces to create more green space, parks, or gardens.

Wallethub conducted a survey to determine the "Greenest" cities in America

With the goal in mind of finding who had the greenest city in America, Wallethub put together a survey that compared the 100 largest cities across 28 key “green” indicators.  They looked at everything from the policies that encouraged a green lifestyle, public transportation, and things in the environment like the amount of green space available in the city and greenhouse gas emissions per capita.

How did Buffalo do against other cities?

Buffalo did really well in this survey.  We showed up in the top 20 at 16th on the list.  A huge boost in this ranking is where we fell when it came to public transportation.  Buffalo was 8th when it came to how green our public transportation is.  That means that not only is it available, but it's affordable for people to use (so it encourages them to use public transportation more often), and the transportation that we do have available is efficient.

The "Greenest City" was awarded to San Diego, California.  To see the full list of cities and where they ranked, click here.