Page 139 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

"A smart sustainable city is an innovative city that uses information and communication
technologies (ICTs) and other means to improve quality of life, efficiency of urban
operation and services, and competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the needs of
present and future generations with respect to economic, social, environmental as well
as cultural aspects".

Source: ITU‐T Study Group 5 and UNECE (2015)
This document is intended for city decision makers and strategists, whose decisions have a
significant impact on the way their city functions and its future development trajectory. Accordingly,
this high level policy document helps identify practical steps based on which urban decision makers
can envisage and build their very own Smart Sustainable City!

3 Starting your SSC journey

For cities wishing to go the SSC way, each city has to start from a different baseline for their
transition to a Smart Sustainable City. However, it is important to understand that SSC means
embracing a journey and cannot be considered the final destination.

Through its research work on SSC, FG‐SSC intended to assist city decision makers (including
municipal and government representatives) by re‐defining the way in which the city’s infrastructure
is built, services are offered, citizens are engaged and systems linked, with the aim of transforming
cities into more sustainable, smart, resilient and robust living environments.

Realizing that the establishment of SSC is a long term process and cannot be achieved overnight, it
is essential that a series of generic steps are defined that would not only allow for comparability but
would also promote sustainable development along with each city being able to quantify
improvements as time passes.

In keeping with this thought, the FG‐SSC has developed some basic steps for SSC transformation.
Each of the steps described in this document are required when making transition to a Smart
Sustainable City. These steps can help formulate an action strategy oriented to: (i) consensus
building among varied stakeholders, (ii) governance mechanisms, (iii) citizen engagement, (iv) ICT
infrastructure, (iv) monitoring mechanisms and (v) learning among SSC stakeholders.

Figure 1 gives an overview of the steps to becoming a Smart Sustainable City.

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 129