But who decides when we have won this accolade, and what will it mean for out city's residents? In an exclusive interview, Hannah Gray spoke to the chief executive of Peterborough Environment City Trust (PECT) Hugh Cripps and director of environment capital for Opportunity Peterborough Trevor Gibson to find out.

This year marks Peterborough's 15th anniversary as an Environment City. What do you think are the top five things which have achieved over the last 15 years?

Hugh Cripps: The big thing is the development of the city-wide partnerships that basically cover all of the environmental domains and which work together to achieve real environmental improvements.

Trevor Gibson: These partnerships have helped us to achieve great things such as Peterborough being at the forefront of waste management for some years now. We're certainly the top recycling unitary authority in the UK.

Hugh: There have been achievements such as the Green Wheel cycle network, which was an £11.25 million project and one that's actually been incorporated into the rest of the city cycle network.

Trevor: It was one of the key reasons why we became one of the three UK Sustainable Travel Demonstration Towns in UK, which we brand as TravelChoice in Peterborough.

Hugh: We've had 15 years of providing free energy efficiency advice to the residents of Peterborough and we've helped Peterborians make their homes warm while being energy efficient and stopping thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere. Over the last 15 years Peterborough has also developed as a hub for environmental business. We have an environmental cluster of more than 350 companies. We're nationally known as a place where environmental businesses want to locate and develop.

Trevor: We're also a green city in terms of our open spaces. For example, the Development Corporation planted hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs, and we're still planting hundreds of trees a year across the city.

Hugh: We've worked very closely with the business sector to help them become greener and more efficient. An efficient business is more likely to be able to ride out the credit crunch or recession. PECT and its partners have developed a whole series of projects to demonstrate sustainable living. We've got projects like "Seeding Sustainable Communities" in the Hamptons, and we've done a huge amount of work with local schools to help them become greener by aiming for Eco School status.

Trevor: All of these achievements, the level of community engagement and the strength of the environmental partnership across the city have given us the confidence to state that we'll create the UK's Environment Capital here in Peterborough.

How do cities go about becoming the Environment Capital? Is there an accreditation body to apply to? Who decides?

Trevor: The short answer is that this is not an award that somebody else has devised or created. There are lots of awards out there, all based on different criteria, but we believe that Peterborough is unique and we have, therefore, set out to create something very different through the Environment Capital initiative.

Hugh: Part of the uniqueness is that Peterborough has built the Environment Capital concept into its Sustainable Communities Strategy and Local Area Agreement. That's the overarching document for the city; it's telling the world, as well as people here, that that's how we want to grow and develop.