Nicola Starkey has embraced the city's green initiatives 'It's anti-social not to reycle'

Wales' youngest city, along with Plymouth, came top among 60 cities in a study of the resources used to maintain the economy and people's lifestyles.

The research found Newport residents were best at using public transport and reducing energy wastage at home as well as eating more locally-produced food.

WWF said people were still using too many natural resources.

It has warned more is needed to be done to reduce the amount of energy used.

An ecological footprint is a measure of the productive land and sea (global hectares) required to feed, provide resources, produce energy and to absorb waste and pollution.

The main factors affecting an individual's ecological footprint are: housing, transport, food, consumer goods and public and private services.

WELSH CITIES' ECO-FOOTPRINT Newport (Ranked 1) Swansea (9) Cardiff (15) St David's (21) Bangor (24)

All of Wales' five cities scored in the top 25 for having a lower footprint.

An eco-footprint takes account of people's personal spending as well as government and business spending on their behalf.

A Newport resident has an eco-footprint of 5.01 global hectares, equating to 2.78 planets needed to meet that rate of consumption.

People in Swansea are next in Wales, needing 5.12 global hectares, or 2.84 planets worth of resources.

Cardiff was third in Wales and 15th in the UK. The study found the city's food footprint, if measured in allotments, would mean the average person needing 49 allotments to provide for their food consumption.

Newport East AM and deputy minister for skills, John Griffiths said: "This report demonstrates that people in Newport are passionate about reducing their ecological footprint and want to play their part in tackling climate change.

"The council's innovative recycling schemes have been matched by a collective effort from local people to change the way they think about their lifestyle habits and help reduce their waste.

"Newport is moving further and faster to reduce its carbon and ecological footprints and setting an exemplary record for the whole of the UK to follow," he added.

WAYS TO REDUCE YOUR ECO-FOOTPRINT Turn appliances off instead of on stand-by Insulate your home Eat locally grown food Holiday closer to home Use public transport where possible

The report showed that despite the services on offer to them, people living in the cities of the UK were consuming "more than their fair share" of natural resources - with the average city dweller consuming the resources of three planets.

Morgan Parry, head of WWF Cymru said: "Our cities have the highest potential for eco-living due to local facilities, public transport links, dense housing and shared public resources.

"However, even the greenest city resident, can on average, only reduce their footprint by one third.

"Everything we spend our money on has the potential to cause harm somewhere in the world whether it's disappearing forests, declining fisheries or climate change.

"But by increasing our understanding of these potential impacts and changing the way we do things we can reduce the negative environmental impacts while maintaining our lifestyle," he added.