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In 2009, Siemens (Germany) sponsored the research by the Economist Intelligence Unit (London), which resulted in the publication of the European Green City Index report, in which the environmental performance of 30 large cities in Europe was analysed. It provided city administrations with an idea of where they stoodvis-à-vistheir European counterparts. However, while adopting such performance evaluation methodologies, it is important to set targets and goals, and to be aware of pitfalls that may exist in the course of a blind pursuit of a higher Green Score. City administrations are usually segmented into different divisions and departments; often each division strives towards its own set of targets and goals, without being aware (or without being concerned, even if it is aware) of the overlaps, conflicts and synergies that may exist with the targets and goals of the others. The Green City Index needs to be considered together with an Urban Socio-Economic Index, which can be suitably structured with the inter-linkages with the indicators of the Green City Index explicitly described. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Environmental policies and politics in the countries of the European Union (EU) have transformed dramatically over the past two decades. Ecological modernization theory has tried to understand and capture the nature of the transformations from the mid-1980s onwards, having a limited number of North-west European nations as its empirical base. This article reviews the development of ecological modernization ideas for analysing such environmental reforms, especially focusing on the tension between national variations reported in empirical research and common denominators claimed by ecological modernization theorists. The article concludes that (i) since the empirical basis on which ecological modernization ideas are founded (environmental reforms in North-west Europe) shows remarkable diversity, we do not have to be too afraid of diversity and other regional 'variations' of ecological modernization ideas; and (ii) there is still sufficient common ground among national variations and sufficient distinction and debate with other schools of thought in the environmental social sciences to speak of one theory. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]