Toledo fared poorly in a WalletHub study released Wednesday of America’s 100 largest cities for environmentally friendly, or “green” practices.
The website, known for financial information including free credit scores and credit reports, said it weighed 20 indicators such as air and water quality, walking and bicycling, renewable energy commitment, and locally grown food.
Toledo came in 97th overall, only three spots ahead of the worst performer, Baton Rouge.
Toledo’s best score was in greenhouse-gas emissions per capita, in which it ranked 35th.
Former Toledo City Councilman Frank Szollosi, a climate-change advocate for the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes regional office in Ann Arbor and for Lucas County, said the next president and Congress should focus less on highway spending and more on high-speed rail to link Toledo with Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and the East Coast network.
“If Toledo wants to attract and keep young people, we need public investment in sustainable transportation — again, infrastructure needs to be a priority at local, state and federal levels,” Mr. Szollosi said, citing a 2014 Rockefeller Foundation and Transportation for America report.
He said locally sourced food through expanded farmers markets “serves as a great opportunity for Toledo and Lucas County to improve public health, launch new and interesting restaurants and catering businesses, and to collaborate with regional farmers.”
Bill Spratley, Green Energy Ohio chief, said his group, the state’s largest for promoting renewable energy, sees Toledo as “the ‘Solar City’ of Ohio.”
“Toledo has the largest solar systems in Ohio, compared to any other city in our May 30, 2016 [report] of the 25 big solar arrays,” Mr. Spratley said, citing major projects by Owens Corning, the Toledo Zoo, GM Powertrain, the Toledo Air National Guard, the University of Toledo, First Solar, and others.
Sixteen of Ohio’s 25 largest solar projects are in northwest Ohio and four months from now the largest will be in Bowling Green, according to information Green Energy Ohio showed at an event on Aug. 25.
Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com, 419-724-6079, or via Twitter @ecowriterohio.
First Published October 13, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
