Gdańsk with the ISO 37120 certificate, awarded to cities with an exceptionally high quality of life.

How many new residents have arrived in Gdansk? How many bicycle paths are there in the city? How many kilometers is the public transport system? How many trees are planted per year? How many firefighters per 100,000? Residents? This and many other indicators were checked by external auditors from the Polish Register of Shipping, after which they awarded Gdańsk the ISO 37120 certificate; as one of the first cities in Poland!

During a press conference on Thursday, 21 September, Deputy Mayor of Gdansk Aleksandra Dulkiewicz stressed that Gdansk is the first city in Poland to receive the ISO 37120 certificate based on all basic indicators. She also pointed out that this standard makes it possible to compare, for example, the quality of life in Gdańsk and in other cities.

Deputy Director of the Economic Policy Department, Katarzyna Drozd-Wiśniewska pointed out that ISO 37120 certificate, the so-called “smart city”, First of all, it means that the city monitors the quality of life of its residents, the quality of urban services in the indicated several areas. “This helps build trust in the city,” she added.

The standard was published in 2014. by the International Organization for Standardization, in Poland, last year by the Polish Committee for Standardization under the title “Social Sustainability. Indicators of urban services and quality of life”. In order to obtain a certificate of compliance with the ISO 37120 standard, the values of 100 indicators of urban services (according to 17 thematic areas) must be provided, including 46 basic (mandatory) and 54 auxiliary (optional). Gdańsk provided values for as many as 87 indicators.

The thematic areas concern all major areas of the city’s functioning, m.in health, education, communication, environment, civic activity, energy. The certificate makes it possible to compare Gdańsk with other cities in the world that have this document, because they all calculate indicators based on the same guidelines. In terms of transport, the length of bicycle paths or the public transport system is given, for example.

^{Fig. Monika Bogdanowicz, Olivia Business Centre}

Drozd-Wiśniewska pointed out that in comparison with more than 40 other cities, Gdańsk ranks sixth in terms of the length of the public transport system with 236 km per 100,000 km. Residents. In terms of the number of trees planted per 100,000 per year. Gdańsk ranks 12th (over 1.5 thousand trees). In terms of per capita household water consumption, the city ranks 9th (104 liters per day) out of 45 cities.

The Lead Auditor of the Polish Register of Shipping S.A., Michał Gałecki, explained that “the standard tries to give cities a chance to compare themselves”. “Until today, there have been various methodologies for counting the city’s successes, e.g. in environmental protection, transport and other areas, and each of them has counted in such a way as to show its best effect” – he added.

Since the ISO 37120 standard was published relatively recently, there is no global entity that collects information on how many cities are interested in it. However, it is known that about 40 cities have taken up the challenge and published results authorized by external entities. Michał Gałecki informed m.in that there are 15 cities in Europe that have implemented the certificate, m.in London, Paris and Berlin.

In Gdansk, 13 (optional) indicators were not calculated, e.g. the indicator concerning the area of recreational, public and commercial areas per capita or the average number of hours of interruptions in water supply per household. “We will try to reach one hundred indicators and successively examine each of them” – declared Drozd-Wiśniewska.

Check the indicators of the ISO 37120 standard in Gdansk

See the presentation of the City of Gdansk

^{PAP/ PR/ Wirtualnemedia.pl/ gdansk.pl}