Page 54 - U4SSC Factsheet Ålesund, Norway, June 2020

such as the Paris Agreement, Connect 2020 Agenda, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and
the New Urban Agenda.
• The vital knowledge gained through Ålesund’s experience in implementing the U4SSC KPIs will
continue to be a part of ongoing efforts to make not only the U4SSC KPIs, but also U4SSC’s upcoming
Smart Sustainable Cities Index the most effective methods to measure progress and to provide
guidance to cities around the world on their journey to becoming smarter and more sustainable.
After the creation of this U4SSC Index, Ålesund should use the index to measure its progress from
the time of this pilot project.

• Ålesund’s reported KPIs will also feed into ITU’s new maturity model. Recommendation ITU-T Y.4904:
‘Smart Sustainable City Maturity Model (SSC-MM)’ is an additional tool to not only set and measure
performance levels of each KPI by Ålesund and other cities, but to also measure the progress of
other key dimensions for the development of a SSC including strategy, ICT infrastructure, data,
services and applications and assessments, as further detailed in the box below.

Box 1: Smart Sustainable City Maturity Model

The Smart Sustainable City Maturity Model (SSC-MM) defines five levels of maturity in the process
of becoming a smart and sustainable city with each level achieved being a higher level of maturity.
The requirement to reach the intended maturity level is to achieve the target KPI values set for
each maturity level.

As an example, for KPI Household Internet Access, a level 1 maturity level could be to collect the
initial benchmark data. The further four levels could then be set as performance levels such as
level 2 achieved at 30 per cent access, level 3 at 50 per cent access, level 4 at 70 per cent access
and level 5 at 90 per cent access.
This can then be overlaid with maturity level performance for the other dimensions to provide
insight into the issues that need to be addressed within each city to become smarter and more
sustainable.
Ålesund and other cities are encouraged to use Recommendation ITU-T Y.4904 as a framework
to determine their interim target values for KPIs by taking into consideration their priorities,
constraints, resources and optimal KPI performance levels. The SSC-MM is another tool that can
be used to communicate progress to stakeholders, help to develop and then execute a SSC strategy
and encourage the effective use of ICTs.

More information on the SDGs, the U4SSC initiative and the U4SSC Smart Sustainable Cities Index can be
found in the Appendix.
At this time, ITU would like to invite cities around the world to implement the U4SSC KPIs for SSC. Using the
U4SSC KPI definitions and data-collection methodologies, all cities will be in a better position to establish
clear data-collection methodologies, collect data consistently in a structured way, develop goals and targets
for each KPI and collect data regularly to track their progress towards smart sustainable goals.

48 U4SSC Factsheet | Ålesund, Norway | June 2020