Cerema in Zhuhai, China, for a week rich in work and exchanges on "Sustainable City" standardisation

Two years after hosting the members of the TC/268 "sustainable development of local authorities" technical committee for the first time in Hangzhou, in 2016, China once again demonstrated its hosting qualities and confirmed its investment in the field of "sustainable city" standardisation, by inviting delegations from this committee to Zhuhai from 14 to 18 May 2018. This city, located in the south of the country, is highly attractive due to its proximity to Macau, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and is undergoing extremely rapid urban expansion.

The mayor of Zhuhai, Mr Wáng Shùnshēng, spoke at the opening ceremony, which was attended by numerous representatives of Chinese cities (Zhuhai, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Beijing, etc), delegations from member countries of the TC/268 technical committee and numerous partners, such as the UN and ICLEI. The mayor affirmed his team's commitment to reconciling development with quality of life for local residents, and acknowledged the importance of the work carried out by the technical committee to support these ambitions. The heads of the committee's various working groups then presented the standards produced and the work in progress. Cerema presented the ISO 37101 standard and the work in progress within WG1 and answered questions from the many participants.

The week continued with meetings of the various working groups. Cerema moderated the WG1 meetings, which enabled progress to be made on current projects:

• implementation of the ISO 37101 standard,
• forthcoming publication of a standard specifying the competencies of ISO 37101 auditors,
• Club des villes international,
• ISO 37104 application guide.

The Chinese cities of Hangzhou, Pekin and Tianjin have mobilised the ISO 37101 standard and reported on the initial results at the Zhuhai meetings. The group's future work prospects were also outlined at the end of the week's meetings, including a future standard on sustainable business districts to be jointly developed by France and China, a draft application guide for ISO 37101 that takes into account the specific problems of medium-sized cities, and a guide for applying the standard to development projects.

These meetings also provided an opportunity for cross-meetings, presentations (the H2020 project on urban resilience, which has now resulted in the publication of a standard), numerous exchanges and a technical visit to take stock of the future urbanisation of Zhuhai.

Finally, the technical committee's plenary session, an annual meeting at which important decisions concerning the operation and work of the committee are validated and recorded, was also held this week.

The next meetings of the ISO TC/268 technical committee will be held in Moscow, Russia, from 15 to 19 October.