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Chances are your agency has identified or is already implementing a few focus areas for environmental sustainability improvement. It may be challenging, however, to prioritize and identify the most impactful solutions that can inform short- and long-term sustainability goals. Reviewing what your agency currently is doing, the impact of those efforts, how you can prioritize efforts that advance equity, and how your agency can build a practice of continual reflection and adaptation in the assessment process to advance efforts is critical. As often is the case, data and stakeholder input are essential parts of this process.

In this first of a two-article series on sustainability planning, we share insights on sustainability assessment and measurement. A future article will cover the process of sustainability project prioritization.

Assessment

The first step to planning your environmental sustainability assessment projects is taking inventory of potential projects, efforts and needs. Staff from your agency and other departments most likely can identify important focus areas. Your internal staff will have great insight on many of these aspects, including future plans, programs, maintenance, administrative policies and other efforts that align with environmental sustainability. Also, other departments at the municipal level could be important to include.

It is important also to involve your community throughout the entire process. This can be done through a variety of methods, including building partnerships with trusted community leaders and groups to engage parts of your community that historically have not been represented. Also, be sure to understand what methods will uplift community voices and centrally engage them in your processes to guide decisions and impacts. Ensure you are equitably approaching this work by including staff or partners who reflect the community groups you are engaging through ethnicity, language and culture; using equitable partnership practices; engaging with community members in the ways they prefer; and compensating and building equitable engagement structures, like advisory panels or ambassador groups. These approaches take time, resources and commitment for long-term success and to address any mistrust from past experiences. NRPA has additional resources about equitable community engagement to help your efforts. Community partnerships and collected information will be invaluable for full inclusion and equitably prioritizing your efforts.

Metrics/Measurement

Internal sources of data from your team and other departments within your municipality often are valuable for measuring the state of current efforts or potential projects. For instance, your maintenance team may know how many gallons of gas they spend on maintenance, which can be important metrics for calculating carbon emissions. Facilities typically know the energy sources they use, the elements within each facility and possibly, from their energy bills, the amount of energy used, which can be a great baseline data for an energy audit. Program staff can assess what resources they are currently using and how the materials, transportation, timing and other aspects can support sustainability. Finally, your administration can review business operations, policies and other efforts that align with environmental sustainability.

Using publicly available datasets can provide essential location-based and comparison data. Plenty of data sources exist to help, from your Global Information System (GIS) or other internal city departments to county-, state- or national-level data resources. Some examples of data available from these resources include:

• Historical, current and projected community demographics. This will support more authentic conversations with the community that will provide insight into community needs and priorities.
• Community resilience, including risk of impact from natural hazards (e.g., flooding, drought) and the ability to recover from them (e.g., financial loss, social vulnerability). Specific examples of resilience categories include social vulnerability, community resilience, expected annual financial loss and natural hazards.
• Environmental factors, including emissions, resource consumption, and quality and health of local natural elements (e.g., watersheds, land cover). Often, these factors can be high-risk priorities, but they also may be areas of low-effort improvements.
• Economic assessments. These can indicate inequitable or inefficient resource allocations through evaluating maintenance and operating costs, budget allocations and staff capacity. Most or all data should be available internally.
• Social equity, measured by quantifying the number and quality of accessible open spaces, health and wellness programs, civic engagement, and other educational opportunities.

To explore some publicly available datasets, NRPA’s Data and Mapping Resource Library is a filterable and searchable list of vetted data sources that may help you gather data for a number of environmental sustainability topics.

Sustainable Evaluation

The evaluation of systems is a cyclical process. Part of the sustainability evaluation plan should include a timeline that includes regular reassessment, opportunities for project modification and addition, and priority adjustment. If you build sustainability review and assessment into your culture, it will be key to keeping attention on continuous sustainability improvement.

Upcoming Resources

In 2025, NRPA will release an assessment tool that will help park professionals explore what they may already be doing, have started or wish to explore regarding their environmental sustainability practices, policies and plans. This is done through an easy checklist focused on climate, economic development, energy, land, leadership, transportation/access, municipal operations, sustainable communities, waste and recycling, and water. This tool can help to guide, organize and prioritize environmental sustainability projects and plans.

Additionally in 2025, NRPA will share another new resource that will help park professionals after they assess their work to examine and determine what possible data sources and metrics they can include in their plans and projects. This process can help agencies consider what goals to set for their efforts using a data lens and help create an assessment and evaluation approach that supports environmental sustainability efforts in their agencies and communities.

Using these two new resources together will prove invaluable for developing a local environmental sustainability improvement plan that includes a solid set of baseline and regular assessment data to describe the current state of prioritized projects.

Dianne K. Palladino, Ph.D., is NRPA’s Interim Director of Research and Evaluation. Michele White, CAE, IOM, is NRPA’s Senior Program Manager, Resilience.