Accelerate Cape Town welcomes sustainable city accolade for Cape Town.
“There is no doubt that we have the ability to reach this goal and, coupled with our strong culture of being innovative, it is definitely possible that Cape Town will be a sustainable city come 2020,” said Guy Lundy, CEO of Accelerate Cape Town. Accelerate Cape Town is a business led initiative aimed at bringing together stakeholders in the Cape Town region to develop and implement a long-term vision for sustainable, inclusive economic growth.
Lundy was acknowledging the recently announced accolade that was conferred on Cape Town by the Ethisphere Institute (a New York based business ethics and social responsibility think tank) as being one of the world’s 10 large cities most likely to become a global sustainability centre by 2020. Other cities listed in this category were Curtiba, Abu Dhabi, London, Singapore Melbourne, Hyderabad, New York, Toronto, and Frankfurt.
The institute identified business development as a key ingredient in achieving the goal of being a sustainable city. Lundy suggests that businesses in Cape Town have started this process through initiatives such as Accelerate Cape Town, which represents 30 of the largest businesses in the Cape region. “While we are thrilled at this accolade, we also acknowledge the challenge areas highlighted by the institute. Poverty and the squalid conditions that some residents live in raised a red flag for Cape Town. The City and Provincial governments and business must work together to create high, inclusive economic growth; this is the only real solution to overcoming the untenable situation in which we can have so much beauty around us and yet have large numbers of residents without basic housing and other essential services.” Lundy stresses that it is important to take note of all the accolades that are being awarded to Cape Town, but warns that we should not be “complacent".“Globalisation has meant that cities and regions are marketing themselves increasingly aggressively, and we must ensure that our name continues to be shouted out above the noise, as one of the world’s greatest cities in which to live, study, work and play,” he said.
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