Page 153 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

Box 1 – FG‐SSC: Composition and Scope of Work

Established in February 2013 by ITU‐T Study Group 5, the Focus Group on Smart Sustainable
Cities provides a platform to share views, develop a series of deliverables, showcase initiatives,
projects, policies and standard related activities that are taking place in the area of smart and
sustainable cities. It also analyzes ICT solutions and projects that promote environmental
sustainability in cities. It is composed of four Working Groups (WG), focussing on the following
tasks:
 Working Group 1 is focused on providing an overview of current state‐of‐art of SSC. The most
important results of this group is the proposed definition of SSC and an overview which define
the different parameters which currently outline a smart sustainable city and the role of ICT
in this urban environment, as the glue which integrates all the other elements as a
foundational platform.
 Working Group 2 is responsible for identifying the technologies and city service
infrastructures needed in the city, specially focused on ICT. It aims to look into future trends
and to identify standardization gaps. This working group has developed several technical
reports focused on the infrastructure and ICT based services needed in SSC, including: smart
buildings, smart water management systems, security and resilience structures, among
others.

 Working Group 3 focuses on defining the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will allow
the evaluation of the city's transformation into a smart sustainable city, using a new
integration model of technology vis‐à‐vis city services. This working group has also identified
the standardization roadmap gaps which is helpful for the standardization activities related
to the development of SSC.
 Working Group 4 is responsible for identifying all the stakeholders that need to be involved
in a smart sustainable city, as well as identifying the major challenges that they could face in
its implementation. This group also has the task to identify key stakeholders within the SSC
standardization and non‐standardization activities worldwide, in order to disseminate and
share the outcomes of the focus group.

Source: ITU (2014). Further information is available at: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU‐T/focusgroups/ssc

2 SSC definition

The emergence of the 'Smart City' notion has been accompanied by a plethora of definitions and
terminology related to smartness, sustainability and innovation within urban settings. Recognizing
the need for a standardized definition of SSC, the FG‐SSC commissioned the preparation of a
technical report aimed at exploring available literature on the subject, analysing existing definitions
of smart cities and sustainable cities from academic, private sector, government, and NGO sources,
and identifying the factors that lay at the core of the SSC's concept.

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 143