Developing Indicators of Urban Sustainability A Focus on the Canadian Experience

Having identified sustainability as an important goal, municipalities and other levels of government are turning to the issue of how to measure a community's progress towards achieving this goal. This report seeks to establish a methodology for developing sustainability indicators. It begins with a discussion of alternative definitions of urban sustainability and then describes some of the general characteristics of indicators and indices. Following a brief investigation of the meaning of sustainability indicators, several potential indicator frameworks are examined, including those which could be adapted from the work on state of the environment reporting, quality of life reporting, and healthy city reporting. Next, more detailed attention is given to appropriate criteria for identifying sustainability indicators and to the steps to be followed in applying those criteria. A number of examples of potential indicators are then described and evaluated against the criteria. Finally, detailed case studies of urban sustainability reporting are presented as well as a brief description of sustainability reporting projects in British Columbia.