Grand Rapids named No.1 metro for sustainable development

In a recent feature from Site Selection Magazine's July 2019 issue, Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Mich. was named the No.1 metro in the U.S. for sustainable development based on several factors.

Site Selection Magazine partnered with sustainability management platform, CSRHub to utilize its information as part of the ranking index. Combined with Site Selection's Conway Analytics data, along with other data sources, the companies were able to come up with measurable indicators for ranking countries, states, and cities on their sustainability.

The criteria for evaluating the top metros in the U.S. for sustainability were:

• LEED buildings (number & per capita)
• Energy Star buildings (number & per capita)
• Green industry projects (tally & per capita)
• CSRHub rankings: Ranking areas by degree of facility investment tracked in 2015-2017 by Conway Projects Database made by companies with high corporate social responsibility ratings as measured by CSRHub (Jan. 2018 ratings, (www.csrhub.com)
• Measurabl metro scores
• Brownfield grants (tally & per capita)
• Brownfield cleanups (tally & per capita)
• Gallup/Healthways Well-Being rankings

Grand Rapids lead both the East North Central region of the U.S. for sustainable development, as well as the nation overall.

Top 10 Metros for Sustainable Development:

1. Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI
2. Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN
3. Lansing-East Lansing, MI
4. Toledo, OH
5. Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, IN
6. Pittsburgh, PA
7. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI
8. Kansas City, MO-KS
9. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO.
10. Austin-Round Rock, TX / Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA

Read the full article on the Site Selection website.