A GUIDE TO SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS FOR THE

URBAN CONTEXT

Austin Troy

Professor & Chair, CU Denver, Dept. of Planning and Design

Presented at Mile High Data Day, Feb 19 2016

Why do indicators matter?

Value proposition

Tracking progress towards sustainability goals

Evaluate effectiveness of sustainability plans

Use to help demonstrate benefits of green investments

Learning happens in process of trying to collect information

Indicators primer

Standard vs. measure

Indicator: a policy-relevant variable defined in such a way as to be measurable over time and space (Astleithner et al 2004)

“Top-down” vs. “bottom up” indicators?

“Core” vs. “specific” indicators

What defines a good indicator?

Relevant

Linked to goals and plans

Available, current, regularly collectible

Cost-effective to collect

Comparable across cities

Flexible for refinement

Not too complex

Clear in meaning and significance

CAN MEASURE INPUTS AND OUTPUTS

What makes good indicator data?

Form

Scale

Accuracy

Coverage

Completeness

Currency

Legality

Maintenance

Provenance

Relevancy How is it collected?

Major Urban Sustainability Indicator

Frameworks

Quick guide to:

ISO 37120

Sustainable Development of Communities Indicators

for City Services and Quality of Life (2014)

100 core indicators

46 supporting indicators

profile indicators: basic statistics & background information

– Certification under standard ONLY acknowledgement that data

collected, verified by 3rd party audit & publicly available

– Portal through World Council on City Data

ISO 37120 Themes and Indicators

World Council on City Data Open

Data Portal

Theoretically allows users to explore, track, monitor and compare member cities on almost 100 “performance and quality of life indicators.”

Visualize maps, graphs and trends

Indicators tagged with icons by 17 themes and as “core” and “supporting”

World Council on City Data: Indicators

World Council on City Data: Maps and

graphs

World Council on City Data: City

profiles

CATEGORY: City Services – includes services provided by city governments and other entities.

CATEGORY: Quality of Life – includes critical contributors to overall quality of life, but are not the direct responsibility of any local service provider.

THEMES Education Finance Recreation Governance Energy Transportation Wastewater Fire and Emergency Response Health Safety Solid Waste Urban Planning Water

THEMES Civic Engagement Economy Shelter Culture Environment Social Equity Technology and Innovation

• 255 member cities in 82

countries

• Indicator framework

designed for

comparability,

benchmarking

• Compliant

• Hosts “MetroMatch”

provides mechanism for

municipalities to share

technical information on

performance improvement

based on established

benchmarks

Program of Global

Cities Institute

Global City Indicators Program (GCIP):

Global City Indicators Program (GCIP):

Program of Global Cities Institute

255 member cities in 82 countries

Indicator framework designed for comparability,

benchmarking

Compliant with ISO 37120

Hosts “MetroMatch”: provides mechanism for

municipalities to share technical information on

performance improvement based on established

benchmarks

Global City Indicators Program (GCIP):

CATEGORY: City Services – includes

services provided by city governments

and other entities.

CATEGORY: Quality of Life – includes

critical contributors to overall quality of

life, but are not the direct responsibility

of any local service provider.

THEMES

Education

Finance

Recreation

Governance

Energy

Transportation

Wastewater

Fire and Emergency Response

Health

Safety

Solid Waste

Urban Planning

Water

THEMES

Civic Engagement

Economy

Shelter

Culture

Environment

Social Equity

Technology and Innovation

http://www.cityindicators.org/themes.aspx

GCIP Indicator examples

Sustainable Tools for Assessing and

Rating (STAR) Communities

Developed by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability USA, the U.S. Green Building Council, National League of Cities and the Center for American Progress.

Designed to provide common language and framework for local US government to use performance-based metrics

70+ participating communities in US

Sustainable Tools for Assessing and

Rating (STAR) Communities

Includes

point-based

rating system

using 7 goal

areas, each

with 5-7

objectives:

STAR points system

Each goal area has points system by objective

Each objective is evaluated through detailed series of “evaluation measures” broken down by “outcomes” and “local actions”

Circles of Sustainability

Instead of focusing on pre-determined indicators, sets

out a process for deciding upon indicators and looking

at relationships between them.

4 circle types: Profile, Process, Engagement, Knowledge

How the circles work

Subdomains under Ecology domain

Circles of Sustainability Hierarchy

Focus on more

qualitative, subjective

stages of assessment

using a mix of lay,

internal and external

“assessors”

2 hours

4 hours

??

Few months to few years

Examples of CoS Questions from

Ecology Domain

• Based on corporate TBL framework

• Designed to yield “holistic” view of conditions from

across sectors

• Used by 5000+ corporations

• Only 2% of public sector organizations use it, but

guidance for public agencies released in 2005

• Since then these cities have done GRI reports:

Amsterdam, Chicago, Dublin, Rio, Warsaw

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

• Two parts • Reporting Principles and Standard Disclosures:

criteria to be applied to prepare sustainability report ‘in accordance’ with guidelines

• Implementation Manual: explanations of how to apply Reporting Principles, how to prepare information to be disclosed, and how to interpret

• Defines principles for reporting content and quality • 3 categories: economy, environment, social • Environment category broken up into 12 “Aspects”:

Materials, Energy, Water, Biodiversity, Emissions, Effluents/waste, Products/services, Compliance, Transport, Overall, Supplier environmental assessment, Environmental grievance mechanism

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

Environment category broken up into 12 “Aspects”

– Materials

– Energy

– Water

– Biodiversity

– Emissions

– Effluents/waste

– Products/services

– Compliance

– Transport

– Overall

– Supplier environmental assessment

– Environmental grievance mechanism

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

For each TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE indicator listed in Global

Reporting Initiative G4 guidance, following information

captured

• Unique indicator/metric identification code (e.g., G4-

EN8)

• Indicator/Metric label (e.g., total water withdrawal by

source)

• Description of how indicator/metric reported

• “Relevance” of metric

• “Compilation” or how indicator/metric calculated

• “Documentation source” for each indicator/metric

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

IRIS 3.0

From non-profit Global Impact Investing Network

Geared towards social-impact investing

“Clearinghouse” approach incorporating elements from multiple sources, and in turn used by others:

GRI G4,

B Impact Assessment Aligned Metrics: from B Lab, geared towards companies that want B-Corp certification

Land Conservation Metrics: derived through working group with Packard Foundation and other experts

Sustainable Agriculture Metrics: created with Financial Alliance for Sustainable Trade

“Sectors”: agriculture, education, environment, enegery, financial services, health, housing/ community development, land conservation, water

IRIS 3.0 Informational Structure Component field Description

ID The unique IRIS ID associated with a specific IRIS metric.

Section A primary categorization of each IRIS metric. The IRIS metrics are organized in a framework that includes 5 core sections:

Subsection A more detailed categorization of each IRIS metric. There are 21 subsections in total in IRIS 3.0, ranging from Client Information to

Environmental Performance.

Sector A categorization of each metric across one of the following ten sectors:

Metric Name The name of the metric.

Definition The definition of the metric. Please note that bolded words are glossary terms that can be found in the glossary tab.

Calculation An outline of the relevant mathematical calculation, if the metric requires a calculation or formula. Some formulas will be based on

other IRIS metrics and will be clearly indicated as such.

Usage Guidance

Additional information beyond the details and description provided in the metric definition. This may include considerations related

to aggregating data for this metric, recommended sources for supplementary information pertaining to the metric, clarification of

the metric calculation and intended usage, among others. This is a dynamic field and the IRIS initiative welcomes feedback on how

to further develop this for each metric.

Citation The citation that should be used in public materials when providing data related to the specific metric.

Metric Type

Specifies whether a particular metric is a 'metric' or 'submetric'. The information captured by a 'submetric' is related to the

information captured by its parent 'metric'. For example, Client Individuals: Female (submetric) captures a subset of what is

captured under its parent Client Individuals: Total (metric).

Related Metrics A list of the IRIS metric and submetrics that relate to the specific metric being reviewed. (See Metric Type for more information)

Metric Level

Specifies whether the metric captures information at the organization, product/service level or both. IRIS metrics can be used to

differentiate between values that apply to specific products/services offered by the organization and values that apply to the

organization as a whole. In instances where a metric can be used to describe either a product or the organization, organizations

are encouraged to indicate the level at which they are reporting information.

Metric Quantity

Type

Specifies whether the quantity captured in the metric is a stock or a flow.

- Stock: Metrics that capture information and data at a specified point in time. The majority of stock metrics ask for information

reported as of the end of a reporting period.

- Flow: Metrics that capture information and data measured over an interval of time. The majority of flow metrics ask for

information based on activities over the course of a reporting period.

Reporting Format

The format for reporting against the specific metric. Examples of reporting formats include: hectares, number of days, and number

of people. Some metrics such as currency and unit of measure refer to specific sets of option values (which are described in specific

IRIS metrics) and it is requested that users indicate which option is used.

Dublin example

Barcelona example

THANKS!

QUESTIONS?

Austin Troy

Austin.troy@ucdenver.edu