Toronto - Today, Corporate Knights Magazine unveiled the third-annual Corporate Knights Most Sustainable Cities in Canada list. The comprehensive ranking identifies Canadian cities whose practices leave the smallest environmental footprint possible and create a healthy, thriving population.

The top cities in the 2009 Corporate Knights Sustainable Cities Ranking are as follows:

Large city category: Edmonton, AB
Medium city category: Halifax, NS
Small city category: Yellowknife, NT

With the lowest unemployment rate of all cities and the second-lowest unemployment rate of immigrants, Edmonton wants to be an "innovation centre for value-added and green technologies and products," and is measuring progress by the percentage of green collar jobs created. Edmonton is also the only city in our consideration set to have inclining block pricing on water to encourage conservation.

The Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) is one of the few municipalities that have insecticide and pesticide bans throughout the city. HRM is integrating sustainability into its decision-making through its corporate-wide Sustainability Transition Team. But while Halifax has the largest proportion of Canadian-born visible minorities in the country, no visible minorities sit on its city council.

Yellowknife is the only small city with a LEED-certified building, and the city has integrated energy efficiency into its building bylaws and has also conducted an energy audit on all of its facilities. It also supports creativity with an annual arts competition for local artists. The City of Yellowknife Downtown Enhancement Committee also provides annual funding for building murals that are painted by local artists.

The cities at the bottom of the ranking struggled with poor air quality, lack of systematic waste diversion programs or greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets, and lack of sustainability programs like green business incentives or retrofit programs.

Corporate Knights examined 17 cities, including Canada's top ten cities by population and the largest city in each province and territory.* This year's ranking was strengthened by a three-member national advisory board, composed of lead advisor The Natural Step Canada (TNS) and advisors Greening Greater Toronto (GGT) and Smart Growth BC (SGBC).

"Sustainability presents enormous opportunities for Canadians in the most important task there is: creating safe, healthy and vibrant communities for this and future generations," says Chris Lindberg, Director of Partnerships and eLearning, TNS. "The Natural Step Canada is pleased to work with Canadian communities and progressive organizations such as Corporate Knights to make real change happen for the benefit of all."

The advisory board helped Corporate Knights to identify areas where the magazine could make its methodology more robust by suggesting new and improved metrics that better encompass a city's strengths and weaknesses.

"Sustainable cities are created by good government policies and programs, and by the actions taken by those who work and live in those cities," says Peter Johnson, Chair, Measurement and Performance Working Group, GGT and director with the Sustainable Business Solutions practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. "The indicators selected are intended to provide a snapshot into how cities are evolving."

Cities were assessed based on five categories: Ecological Integrity, Economic Security, Governance and Empowerment, Infrastructure and Built Environment, and Social Well-Being. Publicly available information, including Statistics Canada data, and a city survey conducted by Corporate Knights were used to determine city scores.

Corporate Knights found that several cities had strong affordable housing programs, with smaller cities excelling in this area. Waste diversion targets were also set in most cities surveyed.

Overall, cities are doing a good job of self-regulating: setting GHG emission reduction targets for the city corporation, banning pesticide on city-owned property and mandating environmentally friendly design for new city buildings. But Corporate Knights hopes that there is room to grow.

"We challenge councils to extend these programs to the whole city, and fully integrate what are often seen as side initiatives," says Melissa Shin, Managing Editor.

The full results of the Ranking, including the surveys completed by each city, are available on www.corporateknights.ca and are summarized in the Responsible Investing issue (Vol. 7.3) of Corporate Knights, distributed in the Globe and Mail today.

*Note: Due to lack of data, Iqaluit was omitted from this year's ranking.