From Concrete Jungles to Smart Cities and Digital Towns: Deploying Digital Technologies for Environmental Sustainability

Urban areas account for most of the world’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and struggle to cope with the pressure of ever-growing urbanisation and an ageing infrastructure. This issue is likely to become even more prominent in the future due to current trends in population migration that see more people moving from rural to urban agglomerates. Luckily, research shows that digital technologies have clear potential for mitigating some of the negative environmental effects of urbanisation while making the urban environment more liveable and enjoyable for citizens. This chapter discusses four key themes discussed in the literature on ‘smart cities’ directly related to the deployment of digital technologies in the urban environment to support greater environmental sustainability—smart transportation, building energy optimisation, smart waste management, and environmental monitoring.