The Smart City level of the City of Tshwane compared to the European city standard, and its contribution towards the city’s environmental sustainability.

Abstract

The overall objective of the study is to plan and recommend the most appropriate city environment that can foster the dynamic interactions necessary to implement sustainable and adaptable smart city projects for the purpose of enhancing the quality of the natural environment. Specific research approaches have been applied to answer the separate research questions, which is a performance indicator approach combined with a literature review. The Smart City level of Tshwane is measured, and it is further analysed how this contributes towards environmental sustainability on a city level. Even though environmental issues persist in the City of Tshwane, it was observed that there exists a direct correlation between smart city implementations and the improvement of environmental sustainability, from international examples. It is thus evident from the study that smart city initiatives applied in all city activities facilitate the enhancement of resource efficiency within a city. This ultimately contributes to improving the environmental performance, quality, liveability and sustainability within the cityscape. In order to achieve this, the Smart City level of a city needs to be measured and evaluated to establish a baseline supported by existing data to best inform an integrated approach in planning and implementation procedures (Bosch, et al., 2017). Smart city technologies and implementations create the setting for possible significant changes towards environmental sustainability.

Key Terms: City of Tshwane, Smart City, ICT, environmental sustainability, environmental performance, evaluation, EUROCITIES CITYkeys’ Key Performance Indicator Framework, Key Performance Indicators, city-level, and literature review.