Top five "environmentally-conscious" cities revealed

Using local and regional data on recycling, air quality and green spaces, comparethemarket.com has revealed the UK towns and cities which are the most environmentally conscious.

The study looked at the percentage of recycled waste, searches for ‘recycling centre’ and ‘electric cars’, air quality and number of parks (per 10,000).

Bristol takes the top spot, followed by Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and Manchester.

Bristol came out as the UK’s greenest city for its high level of recycling and air quality and was number one when it came to eco-friendly Google searches, with 47 per 10,000 people.

The city was also named the European Green Capital for 2015 by the European Commission and has committed hundreds of millions of pounds to tackle climate change in recent years.

Notably, however, London failed to crack the top ten in any category, scoring poorly on each of the four factors that we looked at.

Peter Earl, Head of Energy at comparethemarket.com said: “It's clear that the climate, renewable energy and sustainability is a huge focus right now - and so it should be. We should all be putting combined effort into finding the best eco-friendly solutions.

"Surrounding ourselves with green space and changing our actions towards energy is a way to improve wellbeing as well as having benefits for the environment and future living circumstances. One in seven households (14%) have already switched to greener tariffs, whilst a third are thinking of switching to one; this shows that we are progressing, but still have some way to go.”