City in the loop: assessing the relationship between circular economy and smart sustainable cities

Abstract

Research frame:The concept of a smart city is closely related to sustainability. The circular economy is one of the most interesting facets of the latter. Nevertheless, no substantial effort has been made so far to establish the link between the circular economy and smart cities.Purpose of the paper: Through the conceptual systemic perspective and quantitative means, the study investigates how the concepts of the smart sustainable city and the circular economy are interconnected.Methodology: After assessing the related scholarly literature to highlight the systemic nature of the connection between a smart sustainable city and a circular economy, we analyze the relationship between the two by operationally quantifying both concepts on the macro level and the level of the single components of smartness and circularity. Operationalizations are based on the relative frequencies with which certain EU cities are mentioned in scholarly documents related to smartness and the circular economy and indexed on Google Scholar. Regression analysis and principal component analysis are used as the main analytical tools.Findings: We find a significant positive relationship between a city's smartness and circularity. While the presence of specific smart city-related technologies like AI, Big Data, and IoT are less important for the proliferation of circular economy initiatives in a city, the same is not true for the overall presence of an advanced ICT infrastructure. Alternatively, waste management is the element of the circular economy that contributes the most to sustainable urban smartness.Research limits: The analysis is performed on a dataset consisting of 193 EU cities. Therefore, the results cannot be applied to cities outside the EU. Moreover, the indices that operationalize sustainable smartness and circularity are empirically valid but require more in-depth statistical validation.Practical implications: The study suggests city managers and administrators to treat the smart sustainable city concept holistically. Indeed, circular economy initiatives could significantly affect the implementation of smart sustainable urban initiatives.Originality of the paper: Although the literature treats the two concepts extensively, no attempts to quantify the relationship between smart sustainable cities and circular economy have been made until now. We hope this study will shed additional light on the complex systemic nature of the investigated domains.

Anteseden Niat Kewirausahaan Berkelanjutan Gen Z Kawasan Smart City Semarang: Apakah Teknologi dan Pemerintah Daerah Berperan?

“…Integrasi strategi ekonomikewirausahaan dengan layanan TI dapat mendorong inovasi teknologi digital (Mishra, Thakur, & Singh, 2022). Digitalisasi bisnis di Smart City berpotensi mengubah model bisnis dengan positif (Formisano, Iannucci, Fedele, & Bonab, 2022). Model bisnis ini juga berfungsi sebagai alat pengambilan keputusan bagi manajemen perkotaan dalam situasi pengambilan keputusan kompleks, memungkinkan layanan yang ekonomis, inklusif, dan berkelanjutan secara sosial dan lingkungan.…”

Smart Circular Cities: Governing the Relationality, Spatiality, and Digitality in the Promotion of Circular Economy in an Urban Region

“…The connection between smartness and sustainability highlights the intersection of these two trends [11][12][13]. However, there is a lack of conceptual clarity in how sustainability relates to smart city development [14][15][16][17][18][19]. In their analysis of global smart city discourse, Joss and others [20] conclude that, surprisingly, the environment and ecological sustainability are generally afforded a rather marginal role.…”

“…There are a few publications that address the smart-green interplay in narrowly defined application domains, such as transport, energy, water supply, material use, or manufacturing, but the broader picture of the nature of the urban smart-green interplay, not to speak of transitioning to a smart CC or smart urban CE, is lacking. Urban smartness and circularity have overlapping areas, but their dynamics and connections are still insufficiently analyzed [18,24]. This urges us to ask how digital technologies-artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, cloud computing, Big Data, and different kinds of smart systems-that transform entire city ecosystems can contribute to an urban CE.…”

“…How are the various constitutive aspects of the concept of 'urban,' which refers to people who live permanently in a densely-populated area supported by urban infrastructures, taken into account in the conceptualization of CC or urban CE? The connections of such conceptual categories have been addressed separately, as with the connection between smartness and sustainability [14,[16][17][18] or the spatial dimension of a smart city policy [25]. Interestingly, the spatial dimension of the urban CE is explicitly addressed only rarely, even if the location of circular activities, such as the recycling, reuse, or storage of materials, is crucial for such activities [26].…”

Leveraging intersections in management research and practice

“…Amongst the major societal challenges faced today, the research contained in this volume contributes mainly to knowledge regards sustainability, globalization, diversity and the effects of the digital revolution. The intersection between different dimensions related to sustainability and circular economy is at the center of the studies offered by both Formisano et al (2022) andCorsini et al (2022), however the level of analysis they focus on and the research methods they deploy differ. The former study contributes to shed light on the way the characteristics connected to smart sustainable cities and circular economy are interconnected with reference to EU cities, suggesting the relevance of adopting a holistic concept in future policy making and city management due to the high degree of mutual influence between the two concepts.…”