Achieving Equity and Sustainability With Ecocity Standards

A method tested in Morocco motivates community leaders to pursue ambitious goals and legitimately use the Ecocity label.

It is not easy to pursue Ecocity Standards. Similarly to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, they encompass 17 indicators ranging from physical features (e.g. compact urban form, eco-mobility, biodiversity, and ecological integrity) to sociocultural factors (e.g. education, governance, economics, and well-being). Rather than prescribing targets that assume one size fits all, many Ecocity Standards are designed to adapt to local circumstances so that communities address concerns that make sense in a specific context.

Even without incorporating the Ecocity Standards, the SmartCode curbs sprawl, protects important resources, and promotes a variety of planet-friendly features, as demonstrated in projects throughout the Middle East and North Africa. In addition, the SmartCode template allows numerous and diverse commitments to be incorporated and tracked through a single document.

In order to retain Ecocity status, this approach requires biennial reports to ensure compliance with commitments adopted in the SmartCode. Importantly, this method can be replicated by communities with limited resources since SmartCode is an open-source tool accessible from any computer with internet access.

NPC Peer Reviewers assigned this presentation a learning level of Intermediate. For more on learning-level descriptions, visit our General Information Page.