(Guangzhou/People's Daily Online)

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released China's Sustainable Cities Report 2016 in Beijing on Dec. 1. The report evaluated 35 Chinese cities' performance on sustainable development, based on a set of measurable indicators ranging across income, education, health, pollution and resource consumption.

According to the report, Guangzhou tops the list with a score of 0.869 on UNDP's Human Development Index (HDI), followed by Beijing, Nanjing, Shenyang and Shenzhen. The HDI is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education and GDP per capita, which are used to assess human wellbeing.

Agi Veres, UNDP Country Director in China, pointed out that 35 major Chinese cities scored highly on the HDI due to "continual investment in health, education and economic growth, meaning all major Chinese cities have reached the same level of development as developed countries globally." However, Ge also pointed out that this rise has come at the expense of the environment.

The report pointed out that Qingdao has the lowest ecological input among the 35 cities. Lower ecological input indicates lower consumption of resources and less pollution. The average ecological input of the 35 cities has increased since 2015. The report also gives recommendations for development paths for the cities, tailored to their respective development stages. The report suggests whether they need to improve human development, decrease ecological input or both.

Of the 35 cities evaluated in the report, Beijing, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Qingdao, Dalian, Shenyang, Changsha and Jinan have taken crucial steps to shift to cleaner energy, invest in cleaner transportation, develop policies to limit sprawl and improve waste management. The report recommends scaling up these efforts in smaller cities that will see significant growth over the next few years.