Sustainable development in communities — new ISO standard tested

The Chinese city of Hangzhou has become one of the first to test ISO 37101:2016, ‘Sustainable development in communities’. The standard establishes requirements for a management system for sustainable development in communities using a holistic approach, with a view to ensuring consistency with the sustainable development policy of communities.

Shao Xinhua, director general of the Hangzhou Administration of Quality and Technology Supervision, said Hangzhou decided to use ISO 37101 in order to manage and improve sustainability and become more innovative and open.

“Our objective was to increase economic development, improve quality, reduce our environmental impact and advance social governance and public services,” she said. “Ultimately, we hoped for a positive transformation of our urban environment that would make our citizens happier to live there.”

Shao indicated that the experiment is so far going well, using ISO 37101 for “guidance and reference as we implement the city’s strategy and planning”. She said the standard has helped “outline what each department and area should do to contribute to sustainable development, so that we can build standardised, detailed, specialised, high-quality and effective public management and governmental services”.

“Our goal is to use this International Standard to promote Hangzhou to the status of world city,” Shao concluded.