Major cities are incredibly important to the global economy. Over half of current global GDP is accounted for by just 380 cities, but that number is expected to rise to 600 by 2025 – who’ll contribute more than 60% in total. As cities grow in complexity more and more challenges need to be overcome. There has been a search and a need for technologies, smart design and new business models to enable continued growth in a more sustainable manner – making sure that we’re developing the cities of the future, building places that people want to live in – with a focus on the quality of life an area can bring.

Smart Cities harness the benefits of innovation and information technology by improving the lives of those in the area and by becoming more streamlined, efficient and sustainable. Digitisation and electrification of transport infrastructure, intelligent urban transport management systems and infrastructure, sustainable energy systems, efficient buildings, better air quality and the use of technology to improve and make more affordable health services and social care are just some of the examples where smart cities can focus on delivering a better way of life.

The UK is a hotspot of Smart City innovation
It’s fair to say that the UK is at the forefront of Smart City thinking and practice. It benefits from a strong technology and corporate base in construction, property management, engineering, infrastructure as well as in healthcare and environmental services. London has a huge amount of initiatives, such as the Smart London Board, with various moves towards sustainability and digitisation of transport infrastructure. It’s not just the capital thought. Other major UK cities have Smart City Initiatives such as Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow and Milton Keynes to name but a few. The public sector will need to work in a flexible and innovative manner with the private sector, with the potential for new partnership models. Our networking and economic growth conferences allow for those conversations on collaboration to happen – and you can find out more about our events here.

There are several technology disruption waves and themes which are converging around the Smart City topic including:

  • Sustainable Energy: With cities consuming over two-thirds of the world’s energy, and consequently a lot of the movement towards renewables, smart grids, and greater energy efficiency are within cities. We see opportunities in demand-response management, improved energy efficiency, energy storage for renewables, modularising waste-to-energy, and others. One of the leaders within energy is our National Smart Cities Energy Partner – E.ON UK who attend and exhibit all of our conferences.
  • Construction Industry Innovation: Our industry is modernising fast, with digitisation, connectivity at the construction site, grater use of robotics, smarter building design and improvement in materials. This creates an opportunity to invest in technologies that can be integrated throughout large construction projects where small efficiency gains scale to large cost reductions. Modern construction technologies can also contribute to environmental improvements essential for Smart City implementation – these include low CO2 concrete and designs to decrease reliance on heating and cooling systems, such as tinted glass and passive cooling technology.
  • Smart Buildings: A raft of sensing and analytic technologies are allowing smarter and more efficient facilities management and improved working spaces while decreasing the cost of running offices and decreasing waste. The flexible workspace model scaled by companies like WeWork is now being adopted by major professional service firms and beyond. We see opportunities ranging from sensing technologies to integrated technology solutions, improving working conditions and flexibility of daily life.
  • Smart Transportation: Transport is undergoing a massive shift due to multiple pressures and technological advantages: increasingly strained urban transport systems; clean energy technology developments; high-quality data from new sensor technologies, and the associated capability to analyse and utilise this data. These have resulting in the meteoric rise of opportunities in electric vehicles, smart roads, and smart vehicles – in addition to their supporting industries.

And that’s just a few! Waste management, food, healthcare, quality of living, changing working patterns, data storage centres and UAV’s in an urban environment and many more are seeing incredible breakthroughs and innovative new ways of delivering more sustainable and efficient ways of working.

We’re delighted to be part of the Smart Cities future – our economic growth conferences and evening events put those in the built environment together to discuss the debate how public and private sectors can work together to deliver this vision. Checkout our up and coming events and be part of the conversation.