Metrics and Indicators (PILOT)
A community can use this pilot metrics and indicators list (List) prepared by the Sustainable Cities Institute (SCI) to track its environmental sustainability performance. While the List contains a few social indicators, it primarily serves as an inventory of possible environment-related metrics from which a community may choose. A community does not have to track all metrics on the List. Rather, a community can select metrics it has decided are a priority or metrics a community wishes to compare with its peers. Please note that while the List generally indexes these metrics so that comparisons may be made, given the variety of data collection and analyses techniques between communities, any attempted comparison may not be accurate or fair. SCI offers its support to any community undertaking this effort (e.g., basic research regarding metric for the community).
The List follows the organization system developed for the Provisional Goals of the ICLEI – STAR Community Index. At the time of this writing, the STAR Index is under development and our intent in using the STAR Community Index organization system is to help communities use the data collected for future STAR certification.
The layout of each tab is as follows:
- Column B contains the metric.
- Column C contains the most likely source for data.
- Column D contains the names of, and web-links* to, associations, government entities, and organizations that provide technical specifications, definitions, and explanations regarding the metric. *Copy and paste the web-link address into a web browser.
- Column E contains web-links to relevant information that can be found on the SCI website.
SCI encourages each community to coordinate this List with items found in its comprehensive sustainability planning documents (if any) and to use only those items which the community has identified as a priority. Each community should develop and maintain its own List for tracking performance. A community may allow other entities to access their List database through their profile at www.sustainablecitiesinstitute.org, where one community can compare performance with other communities that have made their information available.
Because this is a pilot release of the List, SCI seeks feedback from communities regarding the:
- Comprehensiveness of the list of topics and number of metrics;
- Comparability of the metric across different communities;
- Usefulness of, and modifications to, the information contained in Columns D and E;
- Accuracy of the information contained in Column C; and
- Ease of obtaining data.
SCI requests communities to provide suggestions regarding improving the List (e.g., details regarding a particular metric that the community considers a poor indicator of sustainability).
