Abstract
The IoT and big data technologies have become essential to the functioning of both smart cities and sustainable cities, and thus, urban operational functioning and planning are becoming highly responsive to a form of data-driven urbanism. This offers the prospect of building models of smart sustainable cities functioning in real time from routinely sensed data. This in turn allows to monitor, understand, analyze, and plan such cities to improve their energy efficiency and environmental health in real time thanks to new urban intelligence functions as an advanced form of decision support. However, prior studies tend to deal largely with data-driven technologies and solutions in the realm of smart cities, mostly in relation to economic and social aspects, leaving important questions involving the underlying substantive and synergistic effects on environmental sustainability barely explored to date. These issues also apply to sustainable cities, especially eco-cities. Therefore, this paper investigates the potential and role of data-driven smart solutions in improving and advancing environmental sustainability in the context of smart cities as well as sustainable cities, under what can be labeled “environmentally data-driven smart sustainable cities.” To illuminate this emerging urban phenomenon, a descriptive/illustrative case study is adopted as a qualitative research methodology§ to examine and compare Stockholm and Barcelona as the ecologically and technologically leading cities in Europe respectively. The results show that smart grids, smart meters, smart buildings, smart environmental monitoring, and smart urban metabolism are the main data-driven smart solutions applied for improving and advancing environmental sustainability in both eco-cities and smart cities. There is a clear synergy between such solutions in terms of their interaction or cooperation to produce combined effects greater than the sum of their separate effects—with respect to the environment. This involves energy efficiency improvement, environmental pollution reduction, renewable energy adoption, and real-time feedback on energy flows, with high temporal and spatial resolutions. Stockholm takes the lead over Barcelona as regards the best practices for environmental sustainability given its long history of environmental work, strong environmental policy, progressive environmental performance, high environmental standards, and ambitious goals. It also has, like Barcelona, a high level of the implementation of applied data-driven technology solutions in the areas of energy and environment. However, the two cities differ in the nature of such implementation. We conclude that city governments do not have a unified agenda as a form of strategic planning, and data-driven decisions are unique to each city, so are environmental challenges. Big data are the answer, but each city sets its own questions based on what characterize it in terms of visions, policies, strategies, pathways, and priorities.
Highlights
The concentration of economic activities, the high-intensity use of resources, and the massive deployment of non-renewable energy in cities demonstrate that they have major negative impacts on the environment
Stockholm and Stockholm Royal Seaport (SRS) received an award for best sustainable urban development project in the category Sustainable Communities, which was presented at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris 2015 by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network connecting more than 80 of the world’s megacities (Stockholm City 2020)
A number of studies on the overall relationship between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and climate change show that the positive effects of ICT on reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions result from increasing the efficiency and flexibility of energy production, distribution, and transmission (e.g., GeSI 2008; Griffiths 2008; ITU 2007; MacLean and Arnaud 2008; EEF 2008; EICTA 2009; Reding 2008), and such effects increase more significantly when energy efficiency is combined with renewable energy sources (WWF, Pamlin and Pahlman 2008)
Summary
The concentration of economic activities, the high-intensity use of resources, and the massive deployment of non-renewable energy in cities demonstrate that they have major negative impacts on the environment. The significance of the environment in cities is justified by the fact that they consume about70% of global energy supply, generate about 75% of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, and have currently more than 50% of the world population (Bibri and Krogstie 2020a). This is expected to, according the United Nations, reach 70% by 2050 (UN 2015a). Modern cities play a leading role in strategic sustainable development and have a central position in developing and applying new technologies to support the transition towards sustainability in the face of urbanization
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