Tool: Futureproofed

Futureproofed is an online city carbon management platform built by the climate tech company Futureproofed, part of Sweco, to measure, reduce and report GHG emissions for cities. Futureproofed supports the creation of GHG emissions inventories, climate goal setting, digital collaboration, monitoring of progress, and stakeholder engagement for about 150 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 - Automated public pages for easy communication - Pre-calculated database of climate measures - Helicopter view account for regional coordinators - User-centric plan overview - In-app live support by expert coaches
Tool limitations	- Methodology not publicly available
Geographic location/countries	Currently supporting cities in Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the Philippines. The tool was used by 50 cities across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas in 2022 as part of the collaboration with WWF’s One Planet City Challenge.
Language	English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Catalan, Swedish
Accessibility	Pay to use, but some emissions data is free to download through their Open Data API, Launchpad.
Methodology	Futureproofed prioritizes integrating the most local and recent data where it is available. When not available, data is downscaled from national and regional to city level. National and regional activity data and emission factors are used to calculate the final emissions inventories. 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 prioritizes public data, standardized and endorsed by governmental organizations to ensure the data is of good quality. To assess the quality of the data, Futureproofed 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 implements periodical revisions to retire or update the data used to calculate the impact of measures.
Alignment with global standards and protocols (eg GPC and CRF)	Aligned with the GPC, CRF, and SECAP. Fully supported national frameworks include the Swedish SMHI and the Dutch Klimaatmonitor frameworks.
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 do a combined emissions inventory with other cities. At any time, the tool enables cities to adjust the datasets to match their territorial configuration. Cities can also input their local activity data or emissions data to improve the accuracy of the outputs.
Latest accounting year	2021
Frequency of data updates	Annual
Units	Metric tonnes per capita (tCO2e/per capita) or kilotonnes (kt CO2)
Using the tool, data outputs and how it can be exported	Cities can sign up to use Futureproofed through their website. Cities are enabled to provide their own local data in order to improve the accuracy of the output, such as number of company cars in city, number of buildings, households, etc. When local data is not available, a best-available estimate is automatically suggested by the platform. Cities work on the platform online, and when needed, all the data can be downloaded in different formats suitable for reporting.
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. - The group view allows to aggregate individual cities’ data and provide insights to regional coordinators, empowering multi-level governance. - User-centric plan overview gives cities the flexibility to construct and organize their climate action plans according to their local governance. - An online community connects users with each other and enables exchange around topics that matter to them. - Optional climate partner guidance enables cities to tap into the network of more than 20,000 Sweco experts to help cities for concrete project support.