New ISO Standard Addresses City Performance Indicators

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced a new standard last week: ISO 37120:2014 – Sustainable development of communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life. The new standard is applicable to any city, municipality or local government desiring to measure its performance in a comparable and verifiable manner, irrespective of size, location, or level of development. The standard covers a number of areas, only some of which are: energy, environment, governance, safety, solid waste, transportation, wastewater, and water and sanitation.

The standard was launched during the Global Cities Summit organized by the University of Toronto's Global City Indicators Facility, one of the organizations involved in its development. Also launched at the Global Cities Summit was the World Council on City Data, a new entity that will build an international platform for open, comparable, and ISO-standardized data for participating cities from around the world.