Based on the GDS-Index’s benchmarking and assessment results, this award goes to the top performer amongst participating destinations in order to highlight the destination’s exemplary commitment and efforts to becoming as sustainable as possible. For an outstanding fifth time the winner is Gothenburg, Sweden.

The 2021 winner was Wonderful Copenhagen for its impactful Copenhagen Legacy Lab (CLL). It is designed to help international associations achieve long-term, positive impacts from their global events and was developed for the benefit, transformation, and enrichment of the association, its communities, the host destination and society at large.

Lyon made the largest improvement in one year with a whopping 42% increase in their overall score, thanks to their improvement in their supplier and DMO performance compared to the previous year. Their improvement also launched them from outside the top 20 ranking in previous years into the Top 10 along with its fellow French leading city Bordeaux. These two have now raised the representation by France in the top 10.