Let’s pretend it is the New Year and you are thinking about all the ways you want to improve. Most likely you focus on your health and relationships. You may decide to lose weight, you may decide to get in better shape, or to ride your bike more or say nicer things to your friends. But as you move past the resolution part of the year, how do you know if what you’ve resolved is getting done? How do you know if what you’re doing to improve is working? How do you know if you’re on track?
In some cases it may be quite easy. If you want to lose weight, you step on the scale to determine if what you’re doing to reach your goal is working. If the scale goes down, that means you are losing weight.
But if you are a building or a city manager and you’ve set goals or made resolutions or plans, how do you know if what you’re doing is working? Do you have a tool to measure your success and if so, what does that tool do for you? Are you stepping on the same scale as others? Can you communicate your progress to your community and others in a simple and widely understood way?
As you head into the Municipal Green Building conference this year, do you know if your sustainability efforts are succeeding? Or how your progress compares to that of similar communities? Arc is the tool that measures your progress toward your goals through a simple score of 0-100 that can be communicated to everyone and used by all to compare their efforts. Today, buildings, cities and communities around the world are turning to Arc for comprehensive performance information and powerful data insights. Through Arc, people are translating metrics into meaningful action and helping to improve quality of life.
Arc was created to support the missions of Green Business Certification, Inc. (GBCI) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Arc connects the actions of people around the world, inspiring them to make informed decisions that improve building performance.
As a municipal manager and sustainability leader, you can track and manage data and benchmark across various scales of the built environment all in one place. So you could score one municipal building, all municipal buildings, a district or your community as a whole.
Cities and communities can assess progress using 14 key metrics across the five categories, focusing not only on environmental concerns like GHG emissions or water consumption, but also on social and economic indicators, such as education and safety, so you have a fuller picture of challenges and opportunities.
Whether you are focused on smart technology, climate action, quality of life, conservation of precious resources or something else, Arc allows you to compare your progress, connect to best practices in LEED and other rating systems, and let the world know about your accomplishments with a LEED certification.
LEED for Cities, USGBC’s pilot certification system is available only on the Arc platform. LEED for Cities is a dynamic tool for assessing sustainability and quality of life for communities of all sizes – from a district or neighborhood on up to city, county, state, or region.
The newest version of LEED for Existing Buildings, LEED v4.1, leverages the score in the Arc platform to focus on performance monitoring for energy, water, waste, transportation and indoor environmental quality.
Also, STAR Communities has partnered with GBCI and the STAR Community Rating System soon will be integrated through Arc.
Southern California municipalities can find out more by going to www.arcskoru.com, or emailing contact@arcskoru.com with any questions you might have.
