Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities
How can smart cities boost the net-zero transition?
Proceedings of the 3rd OECD Roundtable on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth (3 July
2023)
Cities have a pivotal role to play in achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Smart
city solutions can help enable and accelerate the net-zero transition by, among many
others, curtailing energy use, accelerating the shift from fossil fuels to renewable
energy, improving resource efficiency, reducing transport demand, and fostering necessary
behavioural change. This paper summarises the proceedings of the 3rd OECD Roundtable
on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth, which took place on 3 July 2023 at the OECD
Headquarters in Paris. It discusses concrete solutions that can boost the net-zero
transition, explores the barriers to scaling up smart city solutions and the enabling
factors that can help overcome them, and proposes ways to strengthen the net-zero
objective in the OECD Smart City Measurement Framework.