Digital Technologies for Urban Metabolism Efficiency: Lessons from Urban Agenda Partnership on Circular Economy

Abstract

Digital technologies engaged in urban metabolism for efficiency provide policymakers, urban managers, and planners with useful instruments to collect, monitor, analyze, and evaluate the circularity of environmental, social, and economic resources to improve their effectiveness and quality. At present, the digital technology-based approach is strategic for circular cities engaged in the development of smart and sustainable actions in the fields of mobility, energy, environment, waste, telecommunications, and security. Through the ‘Circular Resource Efficiency Management Framework’ developed by the European Commission, this paper generates insights into the digitalization practices of the circularity of urban metabolism by analyzing the initiatives implemented by the municipalities of Kaunas, Flanders region, Porto, Prato, The Hague, and Oslo, which constitute the Partnership on Circular Economy (PCE) of the Urban Agenda of the European Union. The results of the analysis provide a wide range of practices such as real-time monitoring stations for water and energy consumption, digital cameras for controlling vehicle flows, web platforms for sharing goods and services, and tracking sensors for public transport, which aim to optimize the efficiency of the circularity of urban metabolic flows. This study increases the understanding and awareness of digital technologies in this paradigm shift.

Innovation Trajectories for a Society 5.0

“…These devices are based on standardized communication protocols, which allow for the sharing and exchange of information across heterogeneous platforms. Consequently, the IoT improves the interactivity and efficiency of critical infrastructures, such as those used in transport [31,45,55], in security [19,56,57], in education [16], and in healthcare [20,58]. Furthermore, IoT allows physical objects to mimic human characteristics, such as sight and hearing [59,60], the decision-making process for communicating [25,61], and the sharing of information and the coordination of actions with each other [23,46,48].…”

“…In order for technology to foster change across all sectors, communication as part of the knowledge-building process is essential. An analysis of the literature has allowed us to derive this concept as a driving factor [55,78]. Communication has three levels: horizontal communication between peers (legitimation); transversal communication between science and society (dissemination); and vertical communication (education) [17,45,49,79,80].…”

Industrialisation, ecologicalisation and digitalisation (IED): building a theoretical framework for sustainable development

“…Digital-twin is also proposed for multiple product-life remanufacturing (Wang et al ., 2020). Researchers also considered implementing circular economy in an urban environment by leveraging digital technologies including real-time water monitoring and digital camera for traffic flow control (D'Amico et al ., 2021). Nogueira et al .…”

“…Digital-twin is also proposed for multiple product-life remanufacturing(Wang et al, 2020). Researchers also considered implementing circular economy in an urban environment by leveraging digital technologies including real-time water monitoring and digital camera for traffic flow control(D'Amico et al, 2021) Nogueira et al (2019). argues that digitalisation is more than an enabler and is one of the important capitals in forming circular economy along with natural, financial capitals, etc.…”

Digitalisation for whom: the determinants of residents' use of the digital property address system in Accra, Ghana

“…However, the research on urban digital solutions in Africa tends to focus on 'the problem-solving perspective' (Luque- Ayala and Marvin, 2016;Balkaran, 2019;Baku, 2022), emphasising technical outcomes with little attention to the socio-environmental context that impacts the use (Odendaal, 2016a(Odendaal, , 2016b. The use of digital technologies by residents and an understanding of the factors that influence their use are essential in designing tailor-made solutions that fit the local context (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2019), and actualising the benefits of digital technologies for transformative urban governance and development (D'Amico et al, 2021).…”