How can smart cities boost the net-zero transition?

Abstract

Cities have a pivotal role to play in achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Smart city solutions can help enable and accelerate the net-zero transition by curtailing energy use, accelerating the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, improving resource efficiency, reducing transport demand, and fostering necessary behavioural change. This paper summarises the proceedings of the 3rd OECD Roundtable on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth (3 July 2023). It provides examples of smart city initiatives that can help reach net-zero emissions and explores the barriers to and risks of scaling up smart city solutions, as well as the enabling factors that can help overcome these barriers and risks. Finally, it proposes ways to strengthen the net-zero objective in the OECD Smart City Measurement Framework.