Warsaw – capital of Poland and home to +1.7 million residents – recently published its latest sustainability report (a press release, executive summary, and the entire Warsaw Sustainability Report are available in English and in Polish / po Polsku).

The significance of this in the greater global trend of city sustainability reporting was explained in Cities Today. Benefits of such reports have been summarized well by the ISO. Warsaw’s report is intended as a pragmatic, apolitical summary of economic, societal, and environmental health and related goals, policies, and the areas of stakeholders concern as measured in surveys and open fora. Ahead of the COP21 summit in Paris, we should be asking why every city is not doing something so imminently reasonable? How can we manage well what we don’t measure?

Members of Warsaw’s most recent sustainability reporting team, clockwise from top left: Adam Sulkowski, Joanna Wakulinska, Magdalena Obłoza, Leszek Drogosz, Joanna Gajda, Liliana Anam, Magdalena Kraszewska. Photo credit: Michał Ozdoba

Huge congratulations are due to a fantastic team of graduate students: Joanna Gajda, Alicja Marcinek, Magdalena Obłoza, Magda Skrocka-Kołodziejska, and Joanna Wakulińska taking a course in CSR management at Collegium Civitas with Liliana Anam, manager at CSRInfo. They worked tirelessly with a team at Warsaw City Hall led by Director of Infrastructure Leszek Drogosz to research, condense, format, and verify data about material concerns of residents. Thanks to Magdalena Kraszewska as well for her coordination. Finally, I’d be remiss not to thank the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and the Polish-American Fulbright Commission for their making my participation possible!

Warsaw’s latest sustainability report cross-references both the predominant global standard, the Global Reporting Initiative, and the new ISO standard for city sustainability reporting.