C40 & Siemens inaugural City Climate Leadership Awards honor ten cities for excellence in urban sustainability

-- Ten winning cities from around the world

-- Ten categories encompassing the most important aspects of climate action

-- C40 Chair, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg: "Using innovative local approaches, cities are having an impact on climate change globally."

LONDON, Sept. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Siemens and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) announced the winners of the inaugural City Climate Leadership Awards at a ceremony held this evening at the Crystal in London. The Awards honored ten cities for excellence in urban sustainability and leadership in the fight against climate change. The winning cities and their award categories are:

• Bogota (Urban Transportation)
• Copenhagen (Carbon Measurement & Planning)
• Melbourne (Energy Efficient Built Environment)
• Mexico City (Air Quality)
• Munich (Green Energy)
• New York City (Adaptation & Resilience)
• Rio de Janeiro (Sustainable Communities)
• San Francisco (Waste Management)
• Singapore (Intelligent City Infrastructure)
• Tokyo (Finance & Economic Development)

"The C40 & Siemens City Climate Leadership Awards are dedicated to the idea that cities – by refusing to wait for action from national governments and international bodies – can lead the way in addressing the risks posed by climate change," said C40 Chair, and Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg. "Using innovative local approaches, cities are having an impact on climate change globally. I congratulate the ten award recipients and look forward to seeing their projects progress and then spread across the C40 network and beyond."

"The world's cities are facing similar problems. And taken together they account for up to 70 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. We all know two things: the fight against climate change will be decided in cities. And it is through co-operations that we can tackle climate change. The City Climate Leadership Awards are a prime example of our successful cooperation with C40. It helps cities to optimize their performances and share their experiences. Its value is immeasurable," said Roland Busch, CEO of Siemens' Infrastructure & Cities Sector.

The newly created City Climate Leadership Awards gives global recognition to cities whose performance and expertise in climate action will serve as a platform for learning for other cities going forward. Highlights of the award winning initiatives will be showcased in the Sustainable Cities exhibition at the Crystal and in a forthcoming report.

The award-winning cities were selected for the following actions:

Urban Transportation award recipient: Bogota for its efforts to green its Bus and Taxi fleets. Transmilenio, the City's Bus Rapid Transit system, launched in 2000 to transport over 70% of the City's population who travel daily by bus, has already achieved emissions reductions of over 350,000 tonnes annually. New efforts to replace the current diesel fleet with hybrid and full electric buses has started with the aim of reaching 100% conversion by 2024. And as a leader in Latin America, Bogota started an electric taxi cab pilot that promises to convert 50% of the city's fleet within the next 10 years.

Carbon Measurement & Planning recipient: Copenhagen for its 2025 Climate Plan, which lays out the path for the City to become the first carbon neutral capital city by 2025. While focusing on all sectors that comprise the City's carbon footprint, the plan sets ambitious targets and details strategies to achieve a significant reduction in building emissions – which comprise 75% of the city's total. All told, implementation of the Plan will reduce City emissions to 400,000 tons by 2025.

Energy Efficient Built Environment recipient: Melbourne for its Sustainable Buildings Program. This comprehensive approach brings together support for building owners and managers to complete energy & water retrofits with innovative city designed and managed property-tax-based financing to improve the energy and water efficiency of private commercial buildings in the City.

Air Quality recipient: Mexico Cityfor its "ProAire" program,has over the last two decades recorded impressive reductions in local air pollution as well as CO2 emissions. The program's elements range from measures aimed at the reduction of industrial and automobile emissions, urban sprawl containment, to public awareness campaigns. Once ranked the most polluted city on the planet, Mexico City proves that long-term determination and a comprehensive approach can make a huge difference in the air quality of a megacity.

Green Energy recipient: Munich for its 100% Green Power by 2025 Plan. Munich is aiming to produce enough green electricity at its own plants by 2025 to meet the power requirements of the entire municipality of Munich — at least 7.5 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. This would make the capital of Bavaria the first city in the world with over a million inhabitants to run entirely on renewable power.

Adaptation & Resilience recipient: New York for its comprehensive and actionable plan "A Stronger, More Resilient New York," which focuses on rebuilding the communities impacted by Superstorm Sandy and increasing the resilience of infrastructure and buildings citywide. The 250 initiatives are not only bold proposals that can be implemented immediately: 60 will be achieved by the end of 2013 and $10 billion in funding has already been identified to support implementation.

Sustainable Communities recipient: Rio de Janeirofor itsMorar Carioca Program -- a comprehensive urban revitalization strategy, which will invest in revitalization projects throughout the city with the aim of formalizing all of the city's favelas by 2020. With 55 projects already completed, this program is already having a direct impact on the environment, health and welfare of more 200,000 Rio residents, and will ultimately impact the more than 20% of Rio's population that currently live in informal settlements

Waste Management recipient: San Franciscofor its zero waste program, which began in 2002 and includes comprehensive waste management reforms, and has resulted in an unprecedented 80% landfill diversion rate. An impressive 300 tons of food scraps are collected per day, and 100 million fewer plastic bags are being used every year, putting the city well on its path to achieving its ambitious "zero waste" goal by 2020.

Intelligent City Infrastructure recipient: Singapore for its Intelligent Transport System, which incorporates a range of "smart" transportation technologies, including one of the world's first Electronic Road Pricing Systems, real time traffic information delivered through GPS-enabled taxis, and a highly integrated public transportation system. These intelligent solutions allow Singapore to enjoy one of the lowest congestion rates of a city its size anywhere in the world. 

Finance & Economic Development recipient: Tokyo for its Cap and Trade Program, which became the world's first when it was launched in April 2010, requiring CO2 reductions from large commercial and industrial buildings. In its first year, the over 1,100 facilities participating reduced emissions by 13%, the following year an additional 10% reduction was achieved bringing total emissions reductions achieved to date to more than 7 million tons of CO2.

An independent, seven-member judging panel consisting of former city Mayors, architects and representatives of the World Bank, C40 and Siemens evaluated 37 projects in 29 cities as award finalists. Following the Awards ceremony, the 19 remaining finalist cities will participate in a digital & social media campaign, the "Citizen's Choice Award." Members of the public will vote online for the project they deem most innovative and forward-looking. The Citizen's Choice Awards will be announced in November 2013. Voting will commence today at: www.cityclimateleadershipawards.com.

The City Climate Leadership Awards are part of a broader collaboration between Siemens and C40, announced in New York City on April 2013. The partnership includes making Siemens' technical expertise directly available to C40's robust network of cities, enhancing the ability of both organizations to help cities accelerate their climate action efforts. In addition, Siemens will support the C40 Measurement and Planning Initiative dedicated to enhancing each member city's ability to measure data, take action and track progress towards self-identified goals.

The C40 & Siemens City Climate Leadership Awards will be an annual event. For the 2014 Awards, cities will have the opportunity to apply for the awards, and organizations with a significant presence in climate action will be given the opportunity to nominate urban climate action initiatives. Details will be made available on the Awards website in early November 2013.

Further information and facts and figures relation to the Sustainable Cities Week are available at: www.siemens.com/press/sustainable-cities-week

For more information on the Awards and the projects of the nominated cities, go to: www.cityclimateleadershipawards.com

Photographs of the Awards ceremony will be available after the event at: www.cityclimateleadershipawards.com

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The Siemens Infrastructure & Cities Sector (Munich, Germany), with approximately 90,000 employees, focuses on sustainable technologies for metropolitan areas and their infrastructures. Its offering includes products, systems and solutions for intelligent traffic management, rail-bound transportation, smart grids, power distribution, energy efficient buildings, and safety and security. The Sector comprises the divisions Building Technologies, Low and Medium Voltage, Mobility and Logistics, Rail Systems and Smart Grid. For more information, visit http://www.siemens.com/infrastructure-cities

The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) is a network of large and engaged cities from around the world committed to implementing meaningful and sustainable climate-related actions locally that will help address climate change globally. C40 was established in 2005 and expanded via a partnership in 2006 with President William J. Clinton's Climate Initiative (CCI). The current chair of the C40 is New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. http://www.c40.org

SOURCE C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40)