A GUIDE TO SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS FOR THE URBAN … Day.pdf · Major Urban Sustainability...
Transcript of A GUIDE TO SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS FOR THE URBAN … Day.pdf · Major Urban Sustainability...
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