Urban Environment

European Common Indicators

The European Common Indicators initiative is focused on monitoring environmental sustainability at the local level. A set of 10 environmental sustainability indicators have been developed in conjunction with stakeholders and methodologies for collecting the data for each indicator have also been produced in different European languages.

Methodology sheets for the 10 Indicators and survey questionnaire ('Towards a Local Sustainability Profile - European Common Indicators - methodology sheets')

(pdf ~500K)

The European Common Indicators are a ready to use, self-contained set of indicators that will help a local authority interested in the quality of its urban environment to begin to monitor progress. Towns and cities can adapt or add to the 10 indicators to suit local circumstances. The focus of the initiative is on helping local authorities monitor their own progress.

The 10 European Common Indicators

• Citizen satisfaction with the local community
• Local contribution to global climatic change
• Local mobility and passenger transportation
• Availability of local public open areas and services
• Quality of local ambient air
• Children's journeys' to and from school
• Sustainable management of the local authority and local business
• Noise pollution
• Sustainable land use

• Products promoting sustainability

Participating cities are now able to publish and compare their data with data from other cities via the European Environment Agency's "EnviroWindows" website. By exploiting this website, they will automatically inform the European Environment Agency of the use of this tool and the related service; both are free of charge.

Background to the ECI Initiative

A two-year support project Support Project for European Common Indicators - Final Evaluation Report (pdf ~100K) was co-funded by the European Commission, the Italian Ministry of Environment and the Italian National Environmental Protection Agency to develop the above-mentioned indicators and methodology to measure the progress towards sustainability at the local level. The towns and cities which joined the initiative are listed here (pdf ~50K) and their contact details here (pdf ~40K).