Arlington Heights wins high green rating

Arlington Heights residents can brag about living in a green village.

It ranked eighth out of 408 communities with 50,000 to 90,000 people that participated in the Smarter Cities Project. This is an annual study by the Natural Resources Defense Council that measures sustainability efforts.

Factors of environmental sustainability and livability in cities are the cornerstone of the Smarter Cities Project. The initiative involves comprehensive data collected from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Participating communities provide overviews of nine sustainability criteria: Air quality, energy production and conservation, environmental standards and participation, green building, green space, innovation, recycling, standard of living, transportation, and water quality and conservation.

To learn more about the ranking, visit smartercities.nrdc.org/cities/arlington-heights-il or call James McCalister, the village's director of health at (847) 368-5760.