Page 53 - U4SSC Factsheet Ålesund, Norway, June 2020

Conclusion

This has been the first year of Ålesund’s close working relationship with ITU on this project that is
designed, in part, to continue the evaluation of the feasibility of the U4SSC KPIs for SSC. The following
conclusions are based on Ålesund’s experience thus far in its U4SSC smart sustainable journey:

• As a part of the U4SSC KPIs refinement process, ITU undertook a two-part approach to the indicators
by preparing a basic set of core indicators that can be reported easily by most cities, along with a list
of advanced indicators. The advanced indicators can be reported by cities that have attained good
scores on the basic indicators. Ålesund successfully reported 98 per cent of core U4SSC indicators
and 95 per cent of advanced indicators.

• It is expected that the key findings from Ålesund's experience will also help to improve the existing
definitions of the U4SSC KPIs, in order to enable a smoother data-collection process for Ålesund
and, potentially, other Norwegian cities in the future.
• Ålesund should build on its first year of reporting the U4SSC KPIs by instituting the mechanisms
and further development of capabilities to quantify, measure, collect and report data relevant to
the remaining KPIs not reported in its first year. Doing so will also allow for year-on-year progress
benchmarking and analytics.

• In particular, it is recommended that Ålesund reviews the KPIs reported at the lowest levels of the
benchmarks, in particular:

o Water Supply Loss

o Private Vehicles
o Shared Transportation

o Public Building Sustainability
o Water and Electricity Consumption

o Wastewater Treatment

While the benchmarks may not always indicate how a city is actually performing or if a city can actually
influence performance, these KPIs may form the basis for an initial plan of action for improvement.

• Ålesund should work closely with other European cities on its SSC efforts in order to leverage any
best practices and their shared experience with developing and instituting smart and sustainable
policies and initiatives in the region. Regular knowledge sharing and discussions with ITU members
and other international cities are also encouraged.
• It is recommended that Ålesund focuses its efforts on further developing certain key economic
sectors, including its tourism and technology sectors, as part of its SSC goals.
• Ålesund and its fellow aspiring smart sustainable cities should implement the recommendations
and best practices mentioned in this Factsheet to improve the applicability of the KPIs across their
regions and accelerate the achievement of their SSC goals in line with international instruments

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