New framework assesses environmental impacts of smart cities
Cities use, produce and move a vast amount of resources. Smart cities are expected to reduce the environmental impacts of urban environments, but currently there is a lack of evidence to support it. The ARTEMIS project, undertaken with the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme, addressed this issue, developing an integrated framework that provides insight into the environmental impacts of smart cities.
Applying industrial ecology
A lot of data is available on a national level regarding domestic extraction, trade and industrial production, but less is known on resource flows in cities. ARTEMIS applied the concept of urban metabolism (UM) to develop an assessment framework that can be used to quantify potential impacts of smart city strategies on the environment. The framework incorporates material flow analysis (MFA) and life cycle assessment (LCA), and the project research focused on two smart city projects: in Lisbon, Portugal and in Trento, Italy. The MFA model describes the flows of materials and products that go into and from a city or region, based on data related to imports, exports, production and consumption. The approach considers how raw materials and manufactured goods are used, produced and transformed in a region. This granular data can give policy makers the information they need to plan for a more sustainable future. LCA assesses the potential life cycle impacts of products from raw material extraction to end-of-life. This approach is important to support the transition to a sustainable circular economy, which is essential to meet the goals of the circular economy action plan, an important step in reaching Europe’s aim of climate neutrality by 2050. According to MSCA fellow Joana Bastos: “A key aspect of this framework is being holistic – it can provide a comprehensive overview of resource use and environmental impacts of all sectors and subsystems in a city or region – which is important to identify environmental hotspots and potential improvement opportunities.”
A focus on the future of smart cities
Smart cities are a key feature of Europe’s Green Deal initiative. But to reach their full potential, more data and analyses related to their performance are needed. The ARTEMIS assessment framework is applicable not only in the present, but can be used to analyse and compare potential environmental impacts of strategies and measures for sustainable urban development before implementation as well. For example, policy makers anticipate and welcome an increase in renewable energy in the form of photovoltaic panels. But this evolution in energy sources may present trade-offs. Solar energy can reduce reliance on fossil fuels, but it may increase the extraction of critical raw materials, which are currently necessary for manufacturing the panels. Integrated analytic frameworks can provide the necessary methods and insights to consider and plan for the effects of change. The project’s approach to assessing environmental impacts of cities is replicable and has already contributed to other international initiatives. The MSCA fellow joined the European Commission Joint Research Centre to work on key EU initiatives to support climate mitigation action in cities, such as the Covenant of Mayors and the Horizon Europe Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities. Additionally, during the MSCA project, the fellow involved in ARTEMIS helped craft the successful proposal for the ECLECTIC project, coordinated by Eurac Research, which includes researcher organisations and public administrations from Italy, Lithuania, Portugal and Sweden. Joana Bastos says: “ECLECTIC’s overall goal is to enable the design, implementation, and monitoring of integrated, innovative strategic action plans for a circular economy that can effectively contribute to climate-neutral, sustainable, and just planning and development of small and medium-sized EU cities.” Because they concentrate most of the EU population and important economic activities, cities are associated with large environmental impacts, but they also present the most promising opportunities to tackle environmental challenges. Smart cities are expected to lead to rapid and necessary change. ARTEMIS’s holistic framework for assessing environmental impacts of smart cities and regions can contribute to directing that change.
Keywords
ARTEMIS, smart cities, life cycle assessment, material flow analysis, industrial ecology, urban metabolism, circular economy action plan, Green Deal
