Tool: Futureproofed Cities

FutureproofedCities is an online city carbon management platform built by climate tech company Futureproofed to measure, reduce and report GHG emissions for cities. Futureproofed Cities supports the creation of GHG emissions inventories, climate goal setting, digital collaboration, monitoring of progress, and stakeholder engagement for over 200 cities worldwide.

Specifications

Suitable for which city climate journey stage?	Establishing an emissions baseline
Tool strengths	- Aligned with the GPC and CRF - GHG emissions data is integrated into climate action planning tool - Public pages for easy communication
Tool limitations	- Methodology not publicly available
Geographic location/countries	Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chili, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, United Kingdom, United States
Language	English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Swedish
Accessibility	Pay to use, but some emissions data is free to download through their Open Data API
Methodology	FutureproofedCities prioritises integrating the most local and recent data where it is available. If not, data is downscaled from national and regional data to city level. National and regional activity data and emission factors are used to calculate the final emissions. Where national emission factors are not available, the tool uses default factors provided by the IPCC. Data sources include Eurostat, the European Environmental Agency and national statistical services.
Documentation of methodology	Not publicly available but detailed documentation on the methodology is available within the platform.
Data quality/verified by 3rd party	Futureproofed Cities prioritises data that is public, standardised and endorsed by governmental organisations to ensure the data is good quality. To assess the quality of the data, Futureproofed Cities compares its calculations against data submitted by governments to international initiatives such as the Covenant of Mayors. The data is not currently verified by a third party, but Futureproofed uses bi-weekly data sprints to review, retire and update the data used for the calculation of measures.
Alignment with global standards and protocols (eg GPC and CRF )	Aligned with the GPC and CRF
Emissions scopes	1, 2 and some scope 3
GHGs	CO2, CH4, N2O and CFCs from energy use
Sectors included	Buildings, transport, waste, AFOLU and IPPU
Scopes, GHGs and sectors excluded	Scopes: some scope 3. GHGs: HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3
Temporal resolution	Annual
Spatial resolution	City boundary
Functionality for city to make adjustments	Cities can adjust the geographic boundary in the tool if needed and also do a combined emissions inventory with other cities. The ‘Group app’ aggregates individual city accounts into a regional, national or global overview of activity and progress. Cities can also input their own local data to improve the accuracy of the data outputs.
Latest accounting year	2020
Frequency of data updates	Annual
Units	Metric tonnes per capita (t CO2e/per capita) or kilotonnes (kt CO2)
Using the tool, data outputs and how it can be exported	Cities can sign up to use Futureproofed Cities through their website. They can then access and download the emissions data in GPC and CRF format as an excel file. Cities do not need to provide their own emissions data. However, the tool does allow cities to adjust or improve the accuracy of the output by including their own local data, such as number of company cars in city, number of buildings, households, newly registered vehicles, passenger vehicle km, population.
Import into CDP-ICLEI Track	Currently no functionality to import data into CDP-ICLEI Track
Additional tool functionalities	Provides additional target setting and climate planning functionalities, including what actions the city is planning to take and their financial ROI and co-benefits. Cities can make their profile public to facilitate stakeholder and community engagement. Futureproofed Cities also has a free GHG emissions platform called Launchpad, which provides some city emissions data that can be downloaded for free through an API.