Wednesday 25 April 2018

WCCD partners with i-Valley to create world's first Smart+Sustainable Rural Region

                                                                                                 

For Immediate Release
April 25, 2018 
                                                                              

Mayors Gather in Roundtable with VIP Guest as Global 

First Beckons for Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia

The mayors in Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, Canada are gathering on April 30th to discuss the Valley’s certification as the world’s first ‘Sustainable and Smart’ rural region.  Dr. Patricia McCarney, President of the World Council on City Data (WCCD), is travelling from Toronto for the Executive Roundtable.  The WCCD certifies communities under ISO 37120, the first international standard for sustainable and smart communities.

The Executive Roundtable will focus on demonstrating the Region’s attractiveness for investment, through the use of standardized, community-level data in making communities prosperous, sustainable, resilient, smart and inclusive. “This initiative will help to create smarter, more sustainable, prosperous and inclusive communities,” said i-Valley President Terry Dalton.  “We will be compared to the most progressive global communities, through high-calibre, standardized and independently verified data.  This will be immensely attractive for global investors.”

“This mutual inquiry by our Valley Partners is an opportunity to inform our process and guide our future partnerships and collaborations,” said Peter Muttart, Mayor of the hosting Municipality of Kings.  “It crosses our artificial municipal boundaries and takes in the common needs and concerns of all of the citizens of the Valley.  We may well determine that positioning ourselves as being favourably, globally comparable through standardized ISO measurement, opens doors for other levels of government to partner with us, as well as enhancing and telegraphing our competitive position in the broadband-internet field – not just for our current citizens and businesses - but to future investors from all regions of the world.

“Globally comparable data is the starting points for smart and sustainable communities,” stated Dr. McCarney. “The WCCD believes that building a culture of data and having globally comparable, standardized city data enables communities to learn from each other and drive forward more prosperous communities. Standardized, globally comparable and independently verified community data is key to building the case for investment attractiveness. Gone are the days when companies were solely interested in tax and other incentives that communities were willing to offer. They increasingly want to know about air quality, the safety of citizens, and educational attainment in the community. ISO 37120 provides all of these measures in both a local and global comparative context.”

The Valley Regional Enterprise Network (Valley REN) has supported the project from the start.  Deborah Dennis, the newly-appointed CEO of the Valley REN explained, “We need to bring both rural and urban dwellers up to the best of global communications capabilities.  That is why we support the Smart Region initiative.”  Ms. Dennis, who is delivering the closing remarks at the Roundtable, added that “Data that is being gathered across major themes like economy, finance and education, will help with municipal management.  It will allow for informed decision-making based on analysis of evidence-based information and will benchmark areas for improvement that will support collective growth.”

Danny Silver, Director of Acadia University’s Institute for Data Analytics, added that he was pleased to bring his organization’s strengths to bear as a partner in the project:  “Digital technologies and data analysis make meaning out of the unprecedented amount of information available to managers today.”

About i-Valley, WCCD, ISO 37120
i-Valley is a not-for-profit movement to create Smart Regions and Communities in the Annapolis Valley and elsewhere in Nova Scotia. Smart Communities mobilize citizens to achieve faster economic growth, better health care and greater sustainability, through the use of advanced enabling technologies.
The Toronto-based World Council on City Data (WCCD) is leading the international and local implementation of ISO 37120 Sustainable Development of Communities: Indicators for City Services and Quality of Life, the first international standard; created by cities, for cities. ISO 37120 defines a comprehensive set of 100 standardized indicators that enables any city, of any size, to assess their performance and measure progress over time and also draw comparative lessons from other communities and cities locally and globally.
WCCD ISO 37120 Certification has a number of significant benefits for municipalities including the opportunity to demonstrate, through high calibre, independently-verified and comparable data the attractiveness of a city as a location for investment. A rapidly growing number of cities in Canada and globally are seeking and achieving WCCD ISO 37120 certification. For more information, please visit www.dataforcities.org.

For further information please contact Barry Gander, Co-Founder, i-Valley:  Barry.Gander@i-valley.ca or
James Patava, Vice President – Public Affairs, WCCD: james.patava@globalcities.ca