Cities preparing for climate shocks better placed to attract investment

Cities need to focus far more on issues like climate action and demographic shifts to continue to attract investment, a new competitive cities tracker has shown. The Redefining City Competitiveness Tracker, from sustainable development consultancy Arup, shows which cities are best placed for long-term success.

The analysis of more than 60 major urban centres shows traditional indicators alone are no longer sufficient to gauge a city’s long-term competitiveness, and those cities preparing for climate shocks are becoming increasingly attractive to investors.

The analysis measured 63 cities against 37 future success indicators – with around a quarter focused on climate action. These indicators span four key assessment areas for city competitiveness: investor attractiveness, assets, liveability, and urban management and governance.

Paris, Vancouver and Singapore are among the cities with the highest ‘best in class’ rating, and therefore judged as best placed to be leaders of the future, said Arup. “This is due to clear action on critical factors for long-term success, like flood risk and access to renewable energy, along with other major issues like demographic shifts and liveability.”

According to Arup, the analysis “up-ends some traditional assumptions about globally competitive cities and reveals how tomorrow’s leaders could be quite different from successful cities today”.

Arup pointed to Lima as a leader for investor attractiveness, showing potential to challenge traditional powerhouse cities, with Peru rising as a regional leader in green finance. Cities like Seoul, Melbourne and Buenos Aires are championing climate action and resilience, and are also front runners for investor attractiveness, it said. Barcelona, Berlin and Toronto showed strong evidence of promoting inclusivity and equality – a major factor for future success according to Arup.

The report authors advise that there is a growing relationship between cities with strong climate resilience and mitigation plans, and their potential to attract and retain investment, business, and talent. The tracker found 76% of cities studied have well-developed climate strategy plans. It adds that only 29% of cities scored well on inclusivity, showing the need for major improvement globally.

Andy Hodgson, global advisory services leader at Arup, says: “Traditional economic and infrastructure indicators are no longer sufficient to gauge a city’s long-term competitiveness. Cities must build resilience into every aspect of planning and operations – from changing climates to energy and water security – or risk becoming unattractive to investors and citizens.”

He adds: “Those cities that do this will be better positioned to thrive in the long term by protecting their people and assets whilst attracting investment. And there are new, emerging cities leading the way in building resilience to extreme weather like severe heatwaves and flooding and challenging the traditional powerhouses.”

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