Glasgow City Council

Glasgow has set a target of becoming carbon neutral by the year 2030 and is committed to delivering a just transition for its workers and residents. It is the proud host city of COP26 and is working with its urban peers from around the world to ensure that city leadership delivers on national ambitions for a low carbon and climate resilient future.

Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city and at the heart of a wider city-region that takes in almost half of the nation’s population. It is a vibrant, multi-cultural city that has drawn on its assets of people, place and creativity to tackle its post-industrial challenges. Glasgow was one of the titans of the industrial age and is now looking to transform once more to a greener, cleaner economy and society. Its post-industrial rebirth was accelerated in 1990 as European City of Culture and since then then Glasgow has become a major events, sporting and tourism destination. The city’s slogan is ‘People Make Glasgow’ and this characterizes a robust and open city democracy with community engagement at its heart. Glasgow has embraced an economy based on its cultural, sporting and tourist offer and is now:

• A UNESCO City of Music
• In fourth place in the Global Sustainable Destinations Index
• One of the world’s top ten sporting cities

Glasgow is the most diverse city in Scotland, with 12% of its population coming from black and minority ethnic communities. The city is home to almost 30% of all minority ethnic children in Scotland and there are 127 home languages spoken by children attending Glasgow’s schools. Glasgow is also a relatively young city in terms of its age range, especially with a population of 130,000 students from all over the world in its further and higher education sector.

Glasgow declared a climate and ecological emergency in May 2019 and followed that with the report and recommendations of an all-party working group.  It has pioneered a range of policy and programme interventions to grow a more resilient and fairer city, including: 

• Scotland’s first low emission zone to improve air quality
• A city food plan for a more sustainable and just food system 
• A climate change adaptation plan for the city-region 
• A green investment prospectus to attract the funding for its ambitious low carbon plans.

Glasgow is an outward-looking and internationalist city. It is an active member of ICLEI, the Global Resilient Cities Network, the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, the Global Covenant of Mayors and Eurocities. It has also recently announced a major partnership with the C40 network on its Thriving Cities Initiative. Above all else, Glasgow is a city made by its people and the Changemakers you can see on this site are at the heart of a green transformation which will improve urban quality of life for all whilst ensuring that Glasgow plays its part to rebuild planetary health.