ICLEI backs data standard for 20 member cities

ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and the World Council on City Data (WCCD) have announced a joint pilot programme that will see 20 leading ICLEI member cities certified against ISO 37120. Working with the WCCD, these 20 cities will be part of the first 100 cities to be registered with the WCCD with verified data in line with ISO 37120.

“Cities are taking the lead on climate change, economic development, sustainability, poverty reduction and building resilient communities,” Patricia McCarney, President and CEO of the World Council on City Data told Cities Today. “But how do cities best address these complex inter-connected challenges, while also ensuring continued prosperity and managing constrained budgets? The answer: through the power of high quality standardised city data. This is why ICLEI and the WCCD have formed a new strategic partnership to develop and promote the use of standardised city indicators.”

ISO 37120 defines a comprehensive set of 100 indicators that enables any city, of any size, to measure and compare its social, economic, and environmental performance in relation to other cities from around the world.

The application of ISO 37120 can deliver real benefits through promoting more effective governance and service delivery, providing a framework for sustainability and resilience planning, enabling benchmarking and the sharing of best practices between cities, and even helping cities improve their credit/bond ratings and attracting investment from the private sector and senior levels of government.

This group of ICLEI member cities will join the 20 WCCD Foundation Cities that were ISO 37120 certified in November 2014, including London, Shanghai, Melbourne, Helsinki, Dubai, Boston, Toronto and Johannesburg.

“The City of Rotterdam, a long-time ICLEI member and WCCD Foundation City, has been utilising city data to map urban density, energy use and to identify green space deficiencies throughout the city,” said Gino Van Begin, ICLEI Secretary General. “By using comparable city indicators, they were able to engage in a cross-city idea exchange with the City of Vancouver. By implementing ISO 37120, the ICLEI pilot cities will be able to enhance their collaboration and dialogue with other cities around the world.”

A further focus of the ICLEI-WCCD partnership is the promotion of the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC). The GPC is the new global measurement standard for greenhouse gas emissions from cities, helping cities to measure their emissions, build more effective emissions reduction strategies, and track their progress more accurately and comprehensively. The GPC is the specified measurement methodology of greenhouse gas emissions in ISO 37120.