Measuring what matters. That's the goal behind a new initiative here at City of Issaquah, which is a 2009 Siemens Sustainable Community program honoree.

Called the "Sustainability Sounding Board," a group of community leaders appointed by Issaquah's mayor, recently unveiled its long-term vision for a sustainable Issaquah, as well as recommendations for how the community can begin to measure its progress toward that goal.

In late 2008, Mayor Ava Frisinger created the board, which includes 16 citizens and representatives from social service organizations, businesses and the environmental community. The board members met four times to develop its final report for the mayor.

The report describes a long-term vision, eight sustainability themes and 30 sustainability indicators to help measure the community's progress, including this set of 13 "keystone" indicators:  

• Carbon footprint
• Community health
• Diversity of business
• Education
• Food bank use
• Participation in the arts
• Population density
• Preserved natural and open space
• Revenue base diversity
• Transportation by type
• Walkability
• Waste generation
• Volunteerism

The City's Resource Conservation Office (RCO), along with staff from Planning and Economic Development, will now set tangible goals for each of these indicators, as well as collect the data needed to actually measure Issaquah's progress. The City's first "report card" is scheduled to be released a year from now.

Moving forward, the reports are intended to not only shape Issaquah's planning and policy decisions, but also educate, inform and galvanize support from the Issaquah community to achieve our sustainability goals.

For more information, as well as a copy of the board's final report, click here.

David Fujimoto is the City of Issaquah's Resource Conservation Office (RCO) Manager. Issaquah is located about 16 miles outside of Seattle, WA.