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Finally, a national sustainability rating system is in the works—created by and for local governments.
BY LYNNE BARKER, STAR PROGRAM DIRECTOR
all the “top green cities” or “sustainable city rankings” in magazines and on websites. This proliferation speaks to the rise of sustainability as a powerful principle being adopted by local governments and highlights the out- standing progress of so many cities. And yet these lists
T
ultimately fall short and perhaps do local gov- ernments a disservice. Cities are ranked without using detailed metrics or standard methodologies, mak- ing the whole business a guess at best. “There is no common way of defining
a national, consensus-based framework to help any city, town, or county rate its sustainability performance
“
and measuring sustainability success,” says Sadhu Johnston, Deputy City Manager for the City of Vancouver. “We need a sys- tem to quantify how we’re doing and to guide us to further leadership—and that system should be designed and devel- oped by the cities who are using it.” Johnston is part of a national effort,
led by ICLEI, to create such a system: the STAR Community Index, set for launch in spring of 2011. “The STAR Community Index will be
a national, consensus-based framework to help any city, town, or county rate its sustainability performance,” says Mar- tin Chavez, ICLEI USA Executive Director. “STAR’s rating system will help them iden- tify their strengths and weaknesses, and give them a clear roadmap for how to address economic, environmental, and social factors in their communities.”
WHY CITIES AND COUNTIES NEED STAR
Across the U.S., there is a pressing need for a national standard to guide sustain- able community initiatives. ICLEI USA’s
identify collaborative opportunities, and share lessons learned. These dif fer- ences are further magnified by the fact that there are no standard definitions for commonly used sustainability terms. “I hear from many local elected of-
”
ficials and staff who all understand sus- tainability and want to do what’s right for their cities, but it’s often difficult for a variety of reasons,” says Ken Rosenfeld, Director of the Center for Research and Innovation at the National League of Cit- ies, and a member of STAR’s Executive Committee. “Some cities may have ca- pacity challenges, or they may be unsure of the best ways to get started, or be inun- dated by too much information coming from too many directions. It’s a very pow- erful concept to have a single, national, consensus-based sustainability frame- work, developed through a transparent process that any city will be able to turn to for assistance.” STAR’s vision may be ambitious, but
the program is primed for success due to the unprecedented collaboration that led to its creation. ICLEI is developing STAR with a number of key partners in- cluding the U.S. Green Building Council, the Center for American Progress, and the National League of Cities. In addition, STAR has enlisted 165 volunteers repre- senting 135 organizations, including 60
he media love to rank things. Pro football teams, universi- ties … and now cities. These days it’s hard to keep track of
research indicates that sustainabil- ity planning efforts are highly variable. Sustainability plans often adopt differ- ent measures of success and divergent approaches to integrating social, envi- ronmental, and economic factors. The lack of consistency makes it difficult to compare progress across jurisdictions,
cities and 10 counties, state and federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, na- tional associations, universities, utilities, and private corporations.
HOW STAR WILL BENEFIT COMMUNITIES
The STAR Community Index will be
The STAR Community Index will meet the immediate need to provide a standard- ized, national system of sustainable goals and metrics, for everything from how to measure recycling rates and greenhouse gas emissions to educa- tion quality and public safety. With clear, consis- tent, and easily accessible performance measures, cit ies can more easi ly track their performance over time. STAR will define the
components of sustainability with the three main pillars: environment, econ- omy, and equity. “It’s going to create common templates for cities to pursue,” explains Johnston, a member of STAR’s Executive Committee. “There will be a set number of categories within STAR that city staff can reference. They can say, ‘We’ve done this and this, but look, if we ban pesticides or create a green jobs program we can get more points to rate higher in STAR.’” In this way, STAR can help govern-
ment staff more easily set priorities and maximize their investments. Taxpayer dollars can go directly to the assessment and implementation of programs—in- stead of designing a sustainability effort from the bottom up. As a management tool, STAR will pro-
vide a single roadmap for a local govern- ment’s long-term planning efforts. STAR will synch with ICLEI’s Five Milestones for Sustainability planning process, as well as a local government’s existing compre- hensive and master planning efforts. “Right now there is an incredible
drive toward sustainability in municipali- ties across North America,” says John- ston, “and STAR could be the catalyst to take this to the next level.” PE
X X Learn more at
icleiusa.org/star Local Action Moves the World •
www.icleiusa.org
PLANET EARTH \\ STAR COMMUNITY INDEX
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