How can technology support better, greener cities?

Urban population accounts for more than half of the world's population, and it is expected that by 2050, the urban population will increase by another 2.5 billion. They face growing environmental, social and financial pressures and crises (including the recent COVID-19 crisis), as well as infrastructure needs and increasing demands from residents for affordable services and improved quality of life.

However, local authorities and municipalities often lack well-prepared, high-quality and bankable infrastructure projects. In emerging markets around the world, which account for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions, they often exhibit poor infrastructure governance, economic regulation and policy, as well as limited fiscal autonomy and poor financial management.

The resilience of cities and infrastructure services is also critical to the economic recovery from the COVID pandemic, and to responding to past and current fiscal crises and recessions. Fiscal space for many local governments is shrinking. These impacts could limit the city's economic opportunities as revenues plummet along with the fiscal value of real estate.

At the same time, urban spending is increasing due to a slowdown in economic activity and a corresponding increase in job losses and safety net-related measures. Reduced revenues and increased expenditures will lead many cities to adopt prudent fiscal policies and significant adjustments in capital expenditures. Outside our European and UK cities, foreign investment to finance emerging market infrastructure has fallen; ongoing operations have been suspended and many projects have either been canceled or delayed.

So, in this economic climate, how can we contribute to the development of liveable, smart and green cities? At Wiia, we specialize in green cities and infrastructure tenders; low carbon and climate resilient Changing growth combined with smart technology can help cities address the above challenges. We need to green the recovery, build the resilience of cities and support economic transformation. We believe these three principles can help local governments develop effective bids, projects and spending to support the low carbon and climate resilient cities of our future:

Principle 1: Use data to create new businesses Model

Cities, regardless of their complexity and scope, generate oceans of data. Finding insights from all this data can help municipalities respond to emergencies, allocate resources wisely, and create new business models. Additionally, exposing real-time information helps individuals make better decisions and helps businesses create new revenue streams. As cities become smarter, they also become more livable and responsive.

Today, we can only see the role technology will eventually play in urban environments, such as real-time traffic data streaming, the use of drones and V2V connections. Smarter investments linked to spending, supported by data, mean strategically choosing to develop cost-effective projects that help address short-term difficulties while working towards long-term transport sustainability goals.

Principle 2: Integrate gender-based dimensions

The gender imbalance emerging from current patterns and trends in mobility and transportation reveals the disparities that exist in many cities around the world , which fundamentally affects three different aspects: the lack of knowledge about gender issues, the lack of gender mobility data and statistics, the need to plan gender-specific mobility services, and the need to better exploit synergies between urban and mobility planning.

Lessons learned from experience across Europe show that, in addition to the huge information gaps that need to be filled through improved gender-based statistics and research, measures implemented at local level are often pilot projects, due to a lack of Implementation and sustainability issues arise with the use of potentially scalable technologies.

Principle 3: Promote decarbonization through integrated technologies

Decarbonizing all modes of transport by 2050 is possible, but action is needed now. Cost-effective solutions for passenger and freight transport already exist and have been tested at scale – with electrified mobility solutions shared and integrated with walking, cycling and public transport to great effect.

Our analysis shows that to avoid unnecessary travel, shift to more efficient modes, and improve vehicles and fuels, policy and business actions by countries and cities need to be coordinated. Only by integrating the transport decarbonization model into the energy transition model can national policies be aligned behind compact, connected, clean cities.

For example, local authorities could support schemes and opportunities to deploy distributed renewable energy or improve building energy efficiency. Circular and systemic approaches are crucial if we want to create a living, human city where everything is used, reused and interconnected. Isolating or lumping specific solutions – such as transport versus energy – together will only have limited, and likely short-term, impact.

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