  The gradient flow renormalized coupling offers a simple and relatively
inexpensive way to calculate the step scaling function and the lattice scale,
but both applications can be hindered by large lattice artifacts. Recently we
introduced an empirical non-perturbative improvement that can reduce, even
remove $\mathcal{O}(a^2)$ lattice artifacts. The method is easy to implement
and can be applied to any lattice gauge theory of interest both in step scaling
studies and for scale setting. In this talk I will briefly review this
improvement method and discuss its application for determining the discrete
$\beta$ function of the 8 and 12 flavor SU(3) systems and for improved scale
setting in 2+1+1 flavor QCD
