scholarly journals A Digital Circular Economy for Smart Cities

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1432-1439
Author(s):  
Kannikar Khaw-ngern Et al.

Due to the growing global population, the middle class is estimated to reach 5 billion by 2030, and all countries aim to increase their prosperity. This has caused enormous stress on our environment and our resources, which are reducing and becoming more difficult to extract. What worsens the situation is that manufacturers and consumers have tried to produce and consume as cheaply as possible. That has created a linear economy where objects are briefly used and then discarded as waste. The purpose of this article is to review the concept of smart city and how it can be implemented to promote circular economy, to study the difference between of digital city, intelligent city, smart city, and eco-city, to examine the role of digital technology in solving complexity in circular economy and how its functionalities in circular business models. Three case studies: Alpha, Philips CityTouch, and ZenRobotics have been reviewed. The result showed that digital technology can be mainly used for data collection, data exchange, data storage, and data analysis. Data analysis functionalities can be identified as monitoring and reporting product location, product condition and product availability; notifying predictive and preventive maintenance; identifying remanufacturing opportunities; optimizing product's energy consumption; enabling recycling, remanufacturing, product design and pricing; creating the intelligent product and virtual communication. Digital technologies are effective enablers for moving towards a circular economy which can deliver benefits for economy and environment such as increasing efficiency of raw material, reducing resource extraction, stimulating innovative designs, promoting production and remanufacturing, ensuring better distribution, consumption, reuse, and repair, as well as reducing waste.

Author(s):  
Ron Schipper ◽  
Gilbert Silvius

Our current global economy is based on the linear flow of material and energy at a speed faster than earth can regenerate its services. A logical answer is reversing this into a circular economy, implemented through Circular Business Models (CBM). While cities count for the majority of current and future inhabitants, consumption and negative externalities people presume the CE should play an important role in coping with its challenges. To maintain urban livability, there is another emerging city strategy. That is to integrate technology in the urban domain and make a city “smart.” This development questions how digitization can also leverage CBM in the smart city area. However, little research is known on this topic. This article therefore studies the relationship between the circular economy and a circular smart city by exploring digital technology as a common variable. The authors first conceptualize the possibilities to enhance CBM by digital technology and then apply concept mapping to determine if and which CBM have greatest possibility to flourish in a circular smart city context.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Anouar Naoui ◽  
Brahim Lejdel ◽  
Mouloud Ayad ◽  
Abdelfattah Amamra ◽  
Okba kazar

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a distributed deep learning architecture for smart cities in big data systems.Design/methodology/approachWe have proposed an architectural multilayer to describe the distributed deep learning for smart cities in big data systems. The components of our system are Smart city layer, big data layer, and deep learning layer. The Smart city layer responsible for the question of Smart city components, its Internet of things, sensors and effectors, and its integration in the system, big data layer concerns data characteristics 10, and its distribution over the system. The deep learning layer is the model of our system. It is responsible for data analysis.FindingsWe apply our proposed architecture in a Smart environment and Smart energy. 10; In a Smart environment, we study the Toluene forecasting in Madrid Smart city. For Smart energy, we study wind energy foresting in Australia. Our proposed architecture can reduce the time of execution and improve the deep learning model, such as Long Term Short Memory10;.Research limitations/implicationsThis research needs the application of other deep learning models, such as convolution neuronal network and autoencoder.Practical implicationsFindings of the research will be helpful in Smart city architecture. It can provide a clear view into a Smart city, data storage, and data analysis. The 10; Toluene forecasting in a Smart environment can help the decision-maker to ensure environmental safety. The Smart energy of our proposed model can give a clear prediction of power generation.Originality/valueThe findings of this study are expected to contribute valuable information to decision-makers for a better understanding of the key to Smart city architecture. Its relation with data storage, processing, and data analysis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
Beniamino Milioto

The present research paper focuses on the major economic and social evolution regarding the concept of “sustainable development and co-related smart green economy initiatives” in the current 3rd millennium global agenda. The main purpose of the article is to integrate the successful business and economic smart city business and social model with highly sensitive risk governance relating to data collection, data monitoring, data storage, data control, and data governance currently considered as an economic modern drive of development for future global societies and IT corporate businesses and, primarily, as a pivotal government’s asset for strategic political and economic global governance. The analysis will cover the 11 goals of the UN 2030 Global Agenda regarding the creation of “smart cities” as the economic/social concept for inclusive human and urban agglomeration. The paper methodology, supported with the current literature review, reports which technologies, applications, and parameters will define a smart city and how new innovative business models might influence the new economic global order in full respect of the environment and human life.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vickey Simovic

The Canadian Smart Cities Challenge enabled municipalities across the country to reflect on how smart city technology can be used to solve their unique community challenges, embrace the possibility of impactful projects, create collaborations, and create a suite of digital tools. This paper analyses whether governments can be catalysts in adopting circular economy thinking in the age of digital innovation. In reviewing the SCC applications, five proposal submissions were analysed in depth against a circular economy framework. Recommendations for further development in smart city thinking centre around future Smart Cities Challenges, and building circular assumptions into the challenge questions, whereby ensuring circular principles are a priority for municipalities as they continue to grow and adapt to smart city technological advances. Key words: Smart Cities Challenge, circular economy, smart city technology, innovation, sustainable,​ ​reuse, sharing, remanufacturing and repurposing


F1000Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 1066
Author(s):  
Ezatul Faizura Mustaffa Kamal Effendee ◽  
Magiswary Dorasamy ◽  
Abdul Aziz Bin Ahmad ◽  
Azrin Aris ◽  
Saida Hargeum ◽  
...  

Background: Malaysia is embarking on sustainable, resilient, and prosperous living conditions initiatives. Malaysian cities are embracing the smart city aspiration through their respective local authorities. However, they face challenges regarding  funding allocation for smart city implementation. Local authorities primarily operate on a conventional business model. Based on their current business model, they are unlikely to sustain their smart city initiatives. A more financially sustainable business model is required by these local authorities to embark on smart city initiatives. This study presents a systematic review concerning the business models adopted by local authorities to implement smart cities. This paper also explores the applicability of frugal innovation towards developing a smart city business model. Methods: This article undertakes a systematic review based on combination sets of eight main keywords: smart city, business model, frugal innovation, local authorities, performance, inclusivity, technology and success factor. The search strategy includes journal articles and conference proceedings from five major online databases: Emerald, ProQuest, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, and Springer Link between 2001-2021. The data is tabulated for clear expression of knowledge gaps. Results: A total of 17 articles from 300 articles on smart city business models matched the search on smart city business models for local authorities . The study revealed that hardly any in-depth research providing the crucial elements for a successful smart city business model for local authorities has been conducted. No research has linked frugal innovation to smart city business models. Conclusions: The study calls upon the research community to explore further, the possible linkage between frugal innovation and smart cities for local authorities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 4422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin David ◽  
Florian Koch

Globally emerging smart city concepts aim to make resource production and allocation in urban areas more efficient, and thus more sustainable through new sociotechnical innovations such as smart grids, smart meters, or solar panels. While recent critiques of smart cities have focused on data security, surveillance, or the influence of corporations on urban development, especially with regard to intelligent communication technologies (ICT), issues related to the material basis of smart city technologies and the interlinked resource problems have largely been ignored in the scholarly literature and in urban planning. Such problems pertain to the provision and recovery of critical raw materials (CRM) from anthropogenic sources like scrap metal repositories, which have been intensely studied during the last few years. To address this gap in the urban planning literature, we link urban planning literatures on smart cities with literatures on CRM mining and recovery from scrap metals. We find that underestimating problems related to resource provision and recovery might lead to management and governance challenges in emerging smart cities, which also entail ethical issues. To illustrate these problems, we refer to the smart city energy domain and explore the smart city-CRM-energy nexus from the perspectives of the respective literatures. We show that CRMs are an important foundation for smart city energy applications such as energy production, energy distribution, and energy allocation. Given current trends in smart city emergence, smart city concepts may potentially foster primary extraction of CRMs, which is linked to considerable environmental and health issues. While the problems associated with primary mining have been well-explored in the literature, we also seek to shed light on the potential substitution and recovery of CRMs from anthropogenic raw material deposits as represented by installed digital smart city infrastructures. Our central finding is that the current smart city literature and contemporary urban planning do not address these issues. This leads to the paradox that smart city concepts are supporting the CRM dependencies that they should actually be seeking to overcome. Discussion on this emerging issue between academics and practitioners has nevertheless not taken place. We address these issues and make recommendations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donato Impedovo ◽  
Giuseppe Pirlo

Smart cities work under a more resource-efficient management and economy than ordinary cities. As such, advanced business models have emerged around smart cities, which have led to the creation of smart enterprises and organizations that depend on advanced technologies. In this Special Issue, 21 selected and peer-reviewed articles contributed in the wide spectrum of artificial intelligence applications to smart cities. Published works refer to the following areas of interest: vehicular traffic prediction; social big data analysis; smart city management; driving and routing; localization; and safety, health, and life quality.


Cities are the engines of growth for a nation. Smart technologies can help address the urban challenges and improve quality of life, economic opportunity, and liveability for citizens. Cities benefit from a transparent overview of best practice solutions to become smarter and from identifying best-suited solution providers. Companies that make cities smarter benefit from becoming more visible to cities around the globe with their newly developed or proven solutions. Innovative business models help accelerate the adoption of smart technologies. Various funding mechanisms have been used by cities to develop smart city projects. However, it has been revealed that the literature does not provide enough thoughts on these concepts. This paper provides an insight to the concept of innovative business models and the adoption of these in smart cities. Further the paper advances the understanding on the evolving business models and city procurement policies that could be used to accelerate smart city development. The paper seeks to address the question: What are the challenges faced by organisations and smart cities to develop a successful innovative business model? Cities have designed well defined strategies and are in the process of developing strategies for smart city. The paper address the challenges and functions of an innovative business model for development of smart cities.


Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Qing Yin ◽  
Gang Liu

Smart city is a brand-new city form, in which information and communication technologies are utilized to sense, analyze, and integrate the key information of city operation core system, so that intelligent responses can be immediately and effectively taken to various demands including people’s livelihood, environmental protection, public safety, city services, and industrial and commercial activities. Digital economy is a mixed economy with the coexistence of multiple business models and diversified value creation models based on the information and communication technologies and in the digital economy, many things are undergoing huge changes, and their corresponding economic rules also need to be adjusted. On the basis of analyzing previous research works, this paper expounded the research status and significance of smart city’s resource scheduling and strategic management, elaborated the development background, current status, and future challenges of digital economy, introduced the methods and principles of city-level spatiotemporal data model and spatial full factor coding, formulated resource scheduling strategies for smart city based on digital economy, explored the dynamic fusion, storage, and update of smart city’s multisource heterogeneous data, conducted the information display and analysis of multilevel smart city, proposed strategic management approaches for smart city based on digital economy, analyzed the integrated implementation model of shared resource scheduling and people-oriented social management, and discussed the economic growth factors and standardization mechanism of smart city under the background of digital economy. The results of this study provide a reference for further research studies on the resource scheduling and strategic management of smart city under the background of digital economy.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kanishk Chaturvedi ◽  
Thomas Kolbe

Typically, smart city projects involve complex distributed systems having multiple stakeholders and diverse applications. These applications involve a multitude of sensor and IoT platforms for managing different types of timeseries observations. In many scenarios, timeseries data is the result of specific simulations and is stored in databases and even simple files. To make well-informed decisions, it is essential to have a proper data integration strategy, which must allow working with heterogeneous data sources and platforms in interoperable ways. In this paper, we present a new lightweight web service called InterSensor Service allowing to simply connect to multiple IoT platforms, simulation specific data, databases, and simple files and retrieving their observations without worrying about data storage and the multitude of different APIs. The service encodes these observations “on-the-fly” according to the standardized external interfaces such as the OGC Sensor Observation Service and OGC SensorThings API. In this way, the heterogeneous observations can be analyzed and visualized in a unified way. The service can be deployed not only by the users to connect to different sources but also by providers and stakeholders to simply add further interfaces to their platforms realizing interoperability according to international standards. We have developed a Java-based implementation of the InterSensor Service, which is being offered free as open source software. The service is already being used in smart city projects and one application for the district Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London is shown in this paper.


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