Tool

Data for climate indicators

It is often said that you can only manage what you can measure. Indicators describe the status quo of local sustainability and thus form the basis for the development of targets, which in turn form the “heart” of a strategy. Indicators measure the achievement of objectives and thus map the success of a strategy. Different data sets are needed in order to build the indicators, and it is important to understand what data sets are available at the local level.  

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Goal

Understanding the need for good indicators along the strategic / operational goals and what data sets are available at the local level, as well as collecting ideas for building integrated data platforms.

Tasks

  1. You are now invited to start thinking about the data / information that is available at city level. For identified climate priorities / strategic and operational goals, list the indicator you can use to measure progress, the type of data needed to build the indicator, the possible source / database, and the stakeholder / institution that has the data.  (Other possible criteria to be analysed/collected are the frequency of collection and disaggregation of data.)– Refer to Template 1.  
  1. In a later step, you can think about and discuss strategies to improve and harmonise data collection, and how to build integrated data platforms (also looking at data integration: national – regional – local data integration and horizontal data integration). What are the challenges and opportunities? What short- and long-term measures are needed? Brainstorm and visualise your ideas.  

Materials

  • Markers, cards, boards, brown-paper
  • Printouts (template) or prepared templates on a virtual whiteboard  

Note

Involve as many stakeholders as possible to get different perspectives from the sectors. It is important to involve officials dealing with data topics. This exercise is also recommended when different cities are participating, so they can gain mutual inspiration. 

Timeframe

60 to 90 min

Output

Table with indicators and data for different strategic goals, as well as further analysis of data sources, institution responsible, etc.