Explore the Sustainable Cities Report

Executive Summary

By employing a robust and consistent analytical framework based on the UN SDGs, this study overcomes barriers arising from the diversity of urban contexts and inconsistencies in data reporting, enabling more rigorous and comparable evaluations of city progress. The analysis focuses on three major global cities—London, New York City, and Shanghai—and examines progress toward SDGs 3, 7, 11, and 13. Using data from 2015 to 2024, this study assesses city performance across 32 indicators and evaluates the extent to which the three cities are increasing ambition to meet sustainability goals. Specifically, the study has two objectives: (1) to assess city performance relative to 2030 SDG benchmarks and (2) to compare this progress against city- and national-level targets to determine whether cities are pursuing actions that are more ambitious than existing SDG and national commitments.

Project Summary

• In this report, CGS provides a standardized framework to systematically track and assess cities’ contribution to the UN SDGs and national climate ambition.
• City sustainability performance is evaluated by analyzing progress toward SDG using a consistent set of indicators and a decade of data.
• Ambition beyond existing commitments is measured by comparing city progress against both the 2030 SDG benchmarks and city- and national-level targets to identify where cities are leading on climate and sustainability action.
• CGS is continuing to build a scalable global platform, using this first report on London, New York City, and Shanghai, to support the expansion of standardized SDG assessments to cities worldwide.