"Ecocity" is a popular designation for dozens of global urban centers. Indeed the 9th Ecocity World Summit next week in Montreal, Canada will be packed with city officials, planners, activists, educators, and corporations from 75 nations, as well as the United Nations--all trying to plan how the city can be designed and conducted more in harmony with ecosystems, culture and the biosphere.

The summit will also present a scheme to assess ecocities on defined standards and indicators. Seeing that international standards for overall sustainability at the city level do not yet exist, how can ecocities take things to the next level and collectively push forward urban sustainability performance across borders, languages, cultures and local conditions?

Cities are where sustainability meets true systems approaches and economic need: they'll go from harboring more than half of the planet's people to about 70 percent of humanity by 2050. The Earth is undergoing the greatest mass migration in its history as hundreds of millions of rural residents of China move to its booming cities.

Some of the largest ecocity projects include Tianjin, China (pictured above); Waitakere, New Zealand (208,000 pop.) was self-designated as an ecocity before it was absorbed by neighboring Auckland in 2010.

A  host of other cities in China including Changchun, Rizhao and Tangshan ("Caofeidian International Eco-city") are modeled as eco-cities, while India is also planning development of several eco cities along its new Delhi-Mumbai transportation and industrial corridor. Japan, which has been helping India plan its largest ecocity, is also sponsoring development or retrofitting of numerous ecocities or "eco towns."

The term "ecocity" was first used by Richard Register in 1987: Register went on to found in 1992 the non-profit Ecocity Builders, which is based in Oakland, California. (Disclosure: my consultancy Common Current just finished a project with Ecocity Builders to help the organization and its international advisors develop standards and indicators for ecocities, called the International Ecocity Framework and Standards, or IEFS.)

Ecocity Builders' Register, Executive Director Kirstin Miller, Ecological Footprint co-creator Bill Rees and other participants will be addressing the Montreal Ecocity Conference to present the IEFS to participants and partner cities. Four Early Partner Cities (EPCs) for the IEFS--Vancouver and Montreal, Canada; Curitiba, Brazil and Kirtipur, Nepal--will also participate. These cities or communities are already gathering information and data for the IEFS in order to provide initial feedback on the standard and indicator development process.

The IEFS consists of 15 system "conditions" or categories. Cities will eventually be analyzed and measured based on the performance of these components, which have an integral relationship to the city's bioregions (bioregional mapping will become a key IEFS activity). The 15 IEFS categories include:

• Access by Proximity: Walkable access from housing to basic urban services and transit access to close-by employment options.
• Clean Air: Air quality conducive to good health within buildings, the city's air shed, and the atmosphere.
• Healthy Soil: Soils meet their ranges of healthy ecosystem functions as appropriate to their types and environments; fertility is maintained or improved.
• Clean and Safe Water: Access to clean, safe, affordable water; the city's water sources, waterways and water bodies are healthy and function without negative impact to ecosystems. Water is primarily sourced from within the bioregion.
• Responsible Resources/ Materials: Renewable and non-renewable resources are sourced, allocated, managed and recycled responsibly and equitably, without adversely affecting human health or the resilience of ecosystems.
• Clean and Renewable Energy: The city's energy needs are provided for, and extracted, generated and consumed, without significant negative impact to ecosystems or to short- or long-term human health and do not exacerbate climate change. Energy consumed is primarily generated within the local bioregion.
• Healthy and Accessible Food: Nutritious food is accessible and affordable to all residents and is grown, manufactured and distributed by processes which maintain the healthy function of ecosystems and do not exacerbate climate change. Food consumed is primarily grown within the local bioregion.
• Healthy Biodiversity: The city sustains the biodiversity of local, bioregional and global ecosystems including species diversity, ecosystem diversity and genetic diversity; it restores natural habitat and biodiversity by its policy and physical actions.
• Earth's Carrying Capacity: The city keeps its demand on ecosystems within the limits of the Earth's bio-capacity, converting resources restoratively and supporting regional ecological integrity.
• Ecological Integrity: The city maintains essential linkages within and between ecosystems and provides contiguous habitat areas and ecological corridors throughout the city.
• Healthy Culture: The city facilitates cultural activities that strengthen eco-literacy, patterns of human knowledge and creative expression, and develop symbolic thought and social learning.
• Community Capacity Building: The city supports full and equitable community participation in decision making processes and provides legal, physical and organizational support for neighborhoods, community organizations, institutions and agencies.
• Healthy and Equitable Economy: An economy favoring economic activities that reduce harm and positively benefit the environment and human health and support a high level of local and equitable employment options - the foundation for "green jobs".
• Lifelong Education: All residents have access to lifelong education including access to information about the city's history of place, culture, ecology, and tradition provided through formal and informal education, vocational training and other social institutions.
• Well Being--Quality of Life: Strong citizen satisfaction with quality of life indicators including employment; the built, natural and landscaped environment; physical and mental health; education; safety; recreation and leisure time; and social belonging.

While some of these categories are being matched to existing tools and indicators (i.e., Walk Score and similar GIS mapping for Access by Proximity), other categories will need a period of innovation around analytical processes or tools such as the Gini co-efficient (Healthy and Equitable Economy) and the Ecological Footprint (Earth's Carrying Capacity). These have been extensively used on the national level, for instance, but have yet to be consistently applied on the local level.

The lack of international urban sustainability standards has perplexed and bedeviled cities, planners, developers and companies wanting a consistent scorecard across global urban management and development.

True, international sustainability standards exist for buildings, such as the US Green Building Council's LEED, and the BREEAM standards from the United Kingdom, even neighborhoods (LEED for Neighborhood Development). China is also developing its own Three Star standard for buildings. Emerging from the Harvard School of Design is the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure, and from BREEAM are the new BREEAM Communities guidelines.

But the time has come for consistent urban sustainability frameworks and indicators across everything from infrastructure and mobility, to urban agriculture, energy, water, materials and biodiversity.

The International Ecocity Framework and Standards (IEFS) is one of the main entrants in the global race to define and measure what makes a city sustainable. With the cooperation of its Early Partner Cities, Ecocity Builders and the IEFS will hopefully begin to answer these key questions along while getting down to the real business: helping solve how the cities of the world are remaking themselves as more sustainable cities to prepare for a future of more extreme risk--which equals opportunity.