2020 Theses Master's

San Francisco Sustainable Neighborhood Dashboard

Galbo, Kate

San Francisco’s commitment to help reduce global warming by achieving a zero-emission city by 2050 requires multi-scaled action
and collaboration between agencies. The City has many plans and policies in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across sectors. The San Francisco Planning Department is leading the development of the Sustainable Neighborhood Program, in collaboration with partner agencies, to synthesize the City’s many goals, requirements, and targets, create synergies between, often siloed, topics, and maximize mutual efficiencies and outcomes.

The Sustainable Neighborhood Dashboard is a tool created to help demonstrate the potential for data to inform urban sustainability strategy development and prioritization at the community level. The purpose of the Dashboard is to assess and visualize key indicators to provide project sponsors, community stakeholders, and city staff with an understanding of baseline sustainability performance and to facilitate data-driven interventions. The indicators allow users to determine where the largest performance gaps and disparities are and where to focus sustainability- related efforts. This report documents research conducted to create an in-depth assessment of sustainability indicators used in the Dashboard, as well as recommendations for improved data collection and reporting.