Circular & Smart Cities-Innovating Sustainability and Resource Efficiency in European Cities and Regions

Session summary

During the past two decades, smart city development and the approach to urban sustainability and circular economy it promotes have sought favour with universities, industry and governments around the world. This approach is now also championed by civil society organisations, in particular, the United Nations (UN), whose support for smart city development is found written into both the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda. In these two policy documents, the 193 Member States of the UN point out their commitment to deploying smart city development as an ICT-driven approach to urban sustainability and clearly suggest harnessing ICT is key to meeting the aspiration which society has to: (1) attain circular, safe, inclusive, and accessible urban environments; (2) sustain an economic growth based on the principles of environmental sustainability and inclusive prosperity; and (3) provide equal access for all to public goods and high-quality services.

The workshop made it possible to shed light on some of the main barriers which are limiting European city and regional governments’ capability to embrace the ICT-driven approach to urban sustainability which the UN is drawing attention to. These barriers include:

• The digital divide and limited ability of older people to use ICT solutions;
• Lack of communication and collaboration among city and regional governments’ departments and agencies;
• Lack of open source solutions to deploy within urban environments, which leads cities towards expensive vendor lock-in solutions;
• Lack of motivation and commitment;
• Ineffective governance systems, which are unable to: break the silos dividing the departments; and pool the knowledge of the many local and regional stakeholders engaged in sustainability innovations related to smart city development;
• Limited financial resources and difficulties in attracting investments able to support the development smart city agenda;
• Missing guidance due to the lack of roadmaps, guidelines and standards able to provide support;
• Unsupportive legislation;
• Lack of a clear understanding of what smart city development means for cities or regions, as well as the benefits that such an approach to urban sustainability can produce;
• Lack of ICT skills within the departments and agencies, who should support the ICT-driven transition.

Take away message

The workshop made it possible to shed light on some of the main barriers which are limiting European city and regional governments’ capability to embrace the ICT-driven approach to urban sustainability which the UN is drawing attention to.