Technology has indispensably been a part of the city evolution throughout history. In recent years, there has been a shift in the pattern of development in smart cities, where smart cities attempt to embrace practices of sustainability using Information and Communication Technologies and other smart solutions. Past studies reveal that these smart cities have failed in successfully incorporating sustainable development goals into their smart strategies, where they tend to focus more on achieving smartness goals rather than sustainability goals and targets. This paper presents a multifaceted interrogative study on several ongoing smart city initiatives around the globe that supports United Nations Urban Sustainability Agenda. This paper aims to focus on harmonizing smart and sustainable city initiatives with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals using a systems thinking approach. The study develops conceptual models that support the city transition into being a sustainable smart city. These conceptual models were designed based on the fundamentals of system thinking for a system of several elements under the key catalyzers "Policy and Governance," "Research & Development," and "Partnership." The causalities and interrelationships among elements in developed conceptual models justify the dynamicity and the impact of these elements within a system. The outcome of this research paper would support industry experts, policymakers, and city planners to adopt robust policy interventions and best practices for developing strategies that support the transition of smart cities to the futuristic label of sustainable cities.

Sustainable transportation is at the hearth of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is directly linked to many SDGs including SDG3 (good health and well-being), SDG11 (sustainable cities and societies), SDG 7 (clean energy), SDG13 (climate), and SDG 12 (sustainable production and consumption). European countries have been promoting a widespread adoption of electric vehicles to achieve SDGs through resilient, technology-driven, and human-centric mobility. However, potential environmental benefits of electric vehicles depend on various regional factors such as the fuel efficiency and source of electricity generation. At the same time, the economic benefits of mobility to the economy are an important factor for evaluating the relative performance of electric vehicles. To this end, this research paper presents the first empirical analysis of the regionalized eco-efficiency assessment of electric vehicles across Europe. We developed an integrated regionalized eco-efficiency performance score, by employing life cycle assessment and principal component analysis techniques to assess the eco-efficiency performance of electric vehicles in Europe. Considering the energy mix for electricity generation, three environmental indicators (carbon footprint, water consumption, and energy use) and one economic (contribution to national gross domestic product) indicator were used to compute the eco-efficiency scores for 28 European countries. The eco-efficiency scores for each corresponding country were calculated, compared, and clustered in as high, medium, and low eco-efficiency score countries. The clvalid package of R software's archive network is used to determine the optimal number of clusters for the EES dataset. The results of the comparative study

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Electric mobility is at the forefront of innovation. Cutting down greenhouse gases when low-carbon electricity sources are maintained has answered the concerns of skeptics when switching to electric mobility. This paper presents a life-cycle-based comparative study between the electric and conventional gasoline vehicles with respect to their environmental performance, taking the case of Qatar. A well-to-wheel life cycle assessment is used to understand the carbon footprint associated with the use of alternative mobility when powered by non-renewable energy sources such as natural gas for electricity production. A survey was also conducted to evaluate the economic and practical feasibility of the use of electric vehicles in Qatar. The analysis showed that electric vehicles (EVs) have passed conventional gasoline vehicles with a minimum difference between them of 12,000 gCO2eq/100 km traveled. This difference can roughly accommodate two additional subcompact electric vehicles on the roads of Qatar. Even though Qatar is producing all of its electricity from natural gas, EVs are still producing much less carbon footprint into the atmosphere with the results showing that almost identical alternatives produce triple the amount of GHG emissions. The results of the survey showed that, despite promising results shown in switching to carbon-neutral mobility solutions, a lack of willingness prevails within the State of Qatar to incline towards electric mobility among users. This implies that Qatar has to spend a lot of time and resources to achieve its ambitious goal to decarbonize mobility on roads with 10% electric vehicles by 2030. This research highlights the need for more practical incentives and generous subsidies by the government of Qatar on e-mobility solutions to switch the transportation system into an eco-friendly one.