Think Manchester. Think dark Satanic mills. Think rainclouds hemmed in by the Pennines. Even if the contamination from its once-proud industrial heritage weren’t gloomy, and its streets weren’t filled with the fumes from a city on the move, Manchester’s geography would still cast the city in a shade of grey. Yet Manchester is seeking a change of colour – quite a dramatic change in fact. For in a resolution passed by its executive earlier this year the City Council declared that it was setting itself the target of becoming Britain’s Greenest City.

The term ‘the greenest’ is just one of the superlatives included in the manifesto of Manchester’s Labour Party, which holds a majority of seats on the Council. Manifesto pledges are one thing – sticking to them is another. On promotion to the position of Executive Member for Planning and the Environment, Labour Councillor Neil Swannick began to think about what it might mean in practice to fulfil the ‘greenest city’ pledge. After speaking to various lobby groups around the city he realised that there was considerable support for the move. “The idea emerged” he says, “that if we are to develop as a competitive city, then sustainability will be one of the key drivers of this.”

Manchester City Council has based its understanding of what it might mean to be the ‘greenest city’ on a definition drawn up by The University of Manchester’s Centre for Urban and Regional Ecology. This describes a green city as “not just a city that has an abundance of green space, but rather it is a modern, vibrant and resilient city with its eye on the future”. The resolution that went before Manchester’s executive this year stated that “the ‘greenness’ of the city will be a steadily growing driver of its economic success and social well being”. “A greener city”, it said, “can reduce poverty and improve the health of the population”.

The resolution has met a guarded welcome from the city’s environmental community. There is a sense that this is a step in the right direction and a much-needed response to ever more pressing environmental problems. Yet some have raised the question of whether the ‘greening’ drive is simply about getting extra publicity for meeting government targets, while sidelining genuine environmental change, such as tackling resource use. Chris Walsh, founder of MERCi, an independent charity working to make Manchester more sustainable, said: “To an extent the Council is simply amalgamating stuff that it is being asked to do by central government, rather than starting from environmental first principles. I haven’t heard anyone talk about reducing consumption, for example, or following the proximity principle”.

Walsh’s concerns are reflected by the city’s only Green Party Councillor, Vanessa Hall. Hall believes that her election two years ago to a formerly safe Labour seat has had a bearing on Manchester’s increased interest in an environmental agenda. She is sceptical about the ‘greenest city’ plans, saying that: “the Council is really good at coming up with policies that look good on paper. But when you look at the resolution that went before the executive they are not saying anything radical, and are actually going for low targets over a long period of time.” Hall gives an example of paper bulletins been posted in every Councillor’s pigeonhole, despite every Councillor having access to email. “To recycle the paper used is one thing” she says, “but cutting back on paper use to start with is even more important”. She sees this as symptomatic of a wider failure to engage with the issues: “within Manchester Council, environmental issues have become a box to tick. It’s not at the core of what we are doing.”

Though Councillor Swannick consulted some lobby groups to get support for the ‘greenest city’ proposal, the charge that Manchester’s environmental ambitions are too limited may have carried less weight if the city’s residents had been consulted about what a ‘green city’ meant to them. “It concerns me when such phrases are used with little understanding behind them” says Chris Walsh. “The first thing I would have done would be to bring people who live in the city together to define what a green city means to us”.

Engaging public opinion is not the only challenge faced by the quest for ‘greenest city’ status. For the context of the initiative is that Manchester is also seeking economic growth. “This” says Chris Walsh, “means a continual increase in the amount of stuff that is sold, generated and produced in the city. Any cuts in resource use are likely to get swallowed up by being part of an ever-increasing productivity overall”. Catriona Fothergill, Co-ordinator of Manchester’s Environment Network, also acknowledges the conflict between a vision of preserving resources and a vision of economic growth. “It will need negotiating at some point – people in the drive to ‘green’ Manchester can’t assume that everyone will be prepared to accept the objectives” says Fothergill. Councillor Hall thinks that the prospects for such negotiation are bleak: “this is why Manchester will never be the greenest city – the environmental agenda will only be allowed to do things that make money or don’t interfere with the economic growth agenda.”

While it sounds like a healthy debate over the gulf between being greenest and being (conventionally) wealthiest is on its way, Councillor Swannick remains sanguine: “We want to lead as a city into areas that were previously thought of as only suitable for a smaller or rural place. As a huge city we are a major user of resources and energy so have a long way to go. On the other hand, in terms of reducing our eco-footprint, we have a lot to give.”

References available on request

meljarman@redpepper.org.uk