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Why Measure Outcomes? <br />• Without measuring outcomes, it is hard to tell if your efforts are working. Combining <br />"effort" metrics with "effectiveness" metrics helps identify strategies that are working, <br />as well as areas for improvement. <br />• Meaningful metrics help stakeholders focus future efforts on priorities and gaps. <br />• Measuring and reporting also help build trust and credibility. <br />• Communities want to see leadership on the quality of life and resilience issues that <br />matter to them. Measuring outcomes demonstrates that leadership. <br />Guiding Questions for Measuring Outcomes <br />@What are we already measuring? Given community members' priorities, what other <br />information might be useful for informing policy and program design? How are we <br />incorporating equity and environmental justice into our choices about data collection, <br />analysis, and reporting? Do we consider the social distribution of the costs and <br />benefits of policy choices? Remember: lack of policy is still a policy choice. <br />()Are we looking at spatial dimensions of sustainability? Maps are essential here. <br />@Will our data help us measure progress over time on issues of concern to our <br />community? Are we striking the right balance between ease of data collection and <br />meaningfulness for decision making? Do we measure both effort (e.g. dollars or hours <br />spent) and effectiveness (e.g. energy usage or phosphorus concentrations in water)? <br />Do our metrics consider key aspects of sustainability: people, planet, and prosperity? <br />Qs our public reporting on metrics easy to understand and accessible for the <br />community? Do we report metrics (and context) in ways that are engaging and useful? <br />Do we use language and units of measurement that speak to our community? Is our <br />internal reporting -for staff and electeds - accessible and useful? <br />Star -Level Examples <br />Produce a city environmental/ <br />sustainability report/summary with <br />metric indicators; update your city <br />council periodically at public <br />meetings or during an annual work <br />session; involve an existing city <br />council committee or community <br />task force. <br />Adopt (ideally after a public pro- <br />cess and city council review) & <br />commit to measure and annually <br />report on sustainability indicators, <br />generally related to or directly tied <br />to the city's work on 6reenStep <br />best practices; may include comm- <br />unity -wide energy & water use, <br />vehicle miles traveled, & waste <br />generated (Regional Indicators <br />Initiative or Metropolitan Green <br />house Gas Assessment). <br />Wml <br />Use a public process (or public <br />commission with broad represen- <br />tational diversity) to identify, adopt, <br />& commit to measure and annually <br />report on broad sustain -ability <br />(environmental, social, & economic) <br />indicators, such as those covered <br />by 6reenStep Step 4/5 metrics; <br />compare measurements & out- <br />comes with city goals & perfor- <br />mance benchmarks. <br />16 <br />