TYPE
Mini Review
29 November 2022
10.3389/fsoc.2022.995603
PUBLISHED
DOI
OPEN ACCESS
EDITED BY
Agnieszka Ciesla,
Warsaw University of
Technology, Poland
REVIEWED BY
Florian Koch,
Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft
Berlin (HTW), Germany
SDG-11 and smart cities:
Contradictions and overlaps
between social and
environmental justice research
agendas
*CORRESPONDENCE
Ushnish Sengupta
ushnish.sengupta@algomau.ca
Ushnish Sengupta1* and Ulysses Sengupta2
1
SPECIALTY SECTION
This article was submitted to
Sociological Theory,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Sociology
16 July 2022
08 November 2022
PUBLISHED 29 November 2022
RECEIVED
ACCEPTED
CITATION
Sengupta U and Sengupta U (2022)
SDG-11 and smart cities:
Contradictions and overlaps between
social and environmental justice
research agendas.
Front. Sociol. 7:995603.
doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2022.995603
COPYRIGHT
© 2022 Sengupta and Sengupta. This
is an open-access article distributed
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Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
The use, distribution or reproduction
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Community Economic and Social Development, Algoma University, Brampton, ON, Canada,
Complexity Planning and Urbanism Laboratory, Manchester School of Architecture, Manchester
Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom
2
There is an increased role Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
plays in the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper
focuses specifically on SDG-11 “Make cities and human settlements inclusive,
safe, resilient and sustainable” and how cities are increasingly incorporating
ICT toward this goal. The public discourse on Smart Cities suggests economic,
social and environmental benefits are possible through the use of Information
and Communication Technology (ICT). However, the increased deployment
and use of digital infrastructure and processes in the name of sustainability and
optimization itself is the focus of a growing body of critical literature on Smart
Cities. This mini-review collates critical literature on digital infrastructures and
processes related to SDG-11 and Smart Cities to identify areas of significance
for further research. Although many Smart City projects discuss sustainability
benefits, the distribution of benefits and risks across different communities is
rarely examined. An increased use of ICT in Smart City projects can provide
environmental benefits to some communities, while shifting the burden of
risks to other communities. An increased use of ICT has its own energy and
resource impacts that has implications for sustainability beyond the geography
of individual cities to global impacts. The lifecycle and supply chain impacts
of advanced ICT projects are being identified and documented. The end
user of the Smart City projects may benefit significantly from the increased
use of ICTs, while the environmental costs are often borne by disparate
communities. In some cases, within the same city where a Smart City project
is deployed, the inequities in distribution of environmental resources and
services are exacerbated by layering new ICT implementations on top of
existing socio-economic inequities. Therefore, this paper combines a broad
view of Smart City environmental impacts, as well as a deep examination of
the intersection of social justice and environmental justice issues to create
more wholistic approaches for analysis of governance of Smart City projects.
A more wholistic approach for governance of Smart City projects is required
that includes combined social justice and environmental justice frameworks,
toward achievement of SDG-11 goals.
KEYWORDS
ICT, smart cities, environmental justice, social justice, Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), SDG-11, sustainable cities, sustainable communities
Frontiers in Sociology
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10.3389/fsoc.2022.995603
Introduction
government led initiatives and infrastructures coming
under critical scrutiny (Larsson, 2006; Boyle and Mohamed,
2007; Hopkins, 2010). In parallel, there is an emerging
critical literature on Smart Cities, with projects based
on promised sustainability and economic benefits being
exposed as initiatives with inequitable distribution of
benefits and risks (Safransky, 2020; Curran and Smart,
2021; Mouton and Burns, 2021; O’Malley and Smith,
2022). It is the intention of this review to compare the
two literatures and conceptually generate the hypothesis
that urban infrastructure projects and ICT based Smart City
projects have critiques that can be understood through
a social justice and environmental justice framework.
The findings and arguments in this paper contribute to
the intersectional discourse between critical Smart City
literature and SDG-11 literature, through identification of
critical concepts.
Three key concerns provide a useful framing to the critical
literature on ICT related urban development initiatives, namely
natural resource usage, distribution of risks and benefits, and
energy usage. There are a few authors who discuss this breadth
of ICT related environmental and social justice issues. Crawford
(2021) discusses the global environmental and social impacts of
AI and the geographical distribution of the benefits and risks.
Kunkel and Matthess (2020) describes the issues of resource
usage, including rare earth minerals and energy, as well as the
issue of e-waste. Goel et al. (2021) raise the concerns of both
energy use and resource use for sustainable Smart Cities, and
point to the growing level of e-waste, recommending a circular
economy approach to reducing e-waste and resource usage. The
majority of authors focus on a single issue such as increasing
energy usage through increasing use of ICT (Wang et al.,
2021). First, we identify natural resource usage by ICT projects,
where the material supply chain and lifecycle ICT devices and
equipment results in significant environmental impacts (Obaid
et al., 2021). David and Koch (2019) identify the absence of
discourse on critical raw materials in smart city and urban
planning literature. Ilankoon et al. (2022) focus attention on
the limitations of dependency on the extraction of rare earth
minerals. Second, we identify the distribution of environmental
benefits and risks with a Smart City project as an area of deficient
social and environmental justice. Bauriedl and Strüver (2020)
identify the potential risks of ICT projects exacerbating already
existing socio-spatial inequalities. Sengupta and Sengupta (2022)
summarize case studies on distribution of risks and benefits
in Smart Cities including security and discrimination issues.
Third, an emerging area of concern is the increased energy usage
by large ICT projects, where the consumption of energy by
more power intensive processes contributes to global warming
(Strubell et al., 2019). Bender et al. (2021) decribe the energy
usage by Large Language Models, pointing to new applications
of developments in AI resulting in a potential increase in energy
use. Obaid et al. (2021) take a more solution oriented approach,
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with it’s 17
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a global call for action
toward a more sustainable future. Within the 17 SDGs, SDG
11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient
and sustainable”, contains several targets (11.1–11.7, 11.a−11.c)
and related indicators (including unit of measurement or
analysis) for development at an urban or city scale (United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2022).
Smart City initiatives, with popular discourse suggesting the
use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and
related technological developments can lead to social, economic
and environmental benefits (Ismagilova et al., 2019; Raharjana,
2019), initially appear to be in a strong position to engage with
sustainable development actions directly related to the SDGs.
These ICT driven projects are typically government supported
and involve significant investment, infrastructural development
and impacts on citizen services. The critical literature on
Smart Cities questions the potential benefits in the popular
discourse (Kitchin, 2015). There are multiple areas of social
and environmental justice that are pointed to as concerns in
existing models and manifestations of Smart Cities (Asteria
et al., 2020; Loos et al., 2020; Curran and Smart, 2021). Despite
the nexus of concerns and actions, smart city research and
sustainable development research with a focus on SDG-11
remains largely separate.
Authors researching urbanization (Plieninger et al., 2016),
migration economics (Pisarevskaya et al., 2022), culture
(Panzera et al., 2021) and technologies (Marvuglia et al., 2020)
all converge on cities as the site of contestation for social
justice (Harvey, 1997, 2009). The dominant public discourse
on SDG 11 typically focuses on physical infrastructure projects
in cities, including environmental benefits and risks (Hölscher
et al., 2019). Simultaneously, there is a growing literature
related to SDG 11 that involves an ICT component, often
under the theme of Smart Cities (Bibri and Krogstie, 2017b;
Ismagilova et al., 2019). Smart city initiatives in this paper refer
to city government-supported projects involving substantial
investments in ICT infrastructure and ubiquitous computing
projects for real-time monitoring, management and regulation
(Kitchin, 2015). This paper draws out specific concepts from this
discourse on Smart Cities by analyzing the intersection between
social justice and environmental justice. Social justice in this
context refers to equitable social and economic outcomes for
equity-seeking groups, such as women, racialized communities,
older individuals, people with disabilities, and individuals with
lower socio-economic status. Environmental justice refers to
equitable outcomes for the same equity seeking groups but in
terms of sustainability and environmental outcomes (Michalec
et al., 2019).
There is a significant body of critical literature on the
inequities propagated through urban development, with
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10.3389/fsoc.2022.995603
the increased energy demand anticipated by the increased
number of devices to achieve the communication infrastructure
benefits of 6G networks. The second general trend in SDG-11
literature that does include environmental impacts of ICT is
a lack of consideration of the related globalized social justice
impacts of ICT (Couldry and Mejias, 2019). There are some
notable exceptions: Goel et al. (2021) highlight the bottomup participatory nature of Smart Cities that utilize resources
in a more circular economy, making an explicit connection
between social justice and achieving environmental goals. Kaika
(2017) provides a strongly critical social justice oriented view of
smart cities in the context of the “new urban agenda” connected
to SDG-11. Pointing to the environmental risks from natural
resource extraction required for ICT devices and systems, Kaika
(2017) advocates for a deeper examination of the social and
environmental risks of Smart City projects.
Caprotti et al. (2017) take a more critical approach,
describing the datafication of citizens as part of the process of
collecting data for achieving SDG-11 goals, further detailing
the form of datafication as a top-down process where actual
citizens views are not known. Caprotti et al. (2017) advocate
for more inclusive alternative data measurement approaches
involving citizens. Butcher et al. (2021) identifies distribution,
participation and recognition aspects of urban governance as
being essential in achieving a broad range of SDGs. Masekesa
(2021) broadens the concept of participation, identifying the
need for public-private partnerships in Zimbabwe to achieve
SDG-11 goals. Masekesa (2021) indicates these public-private
partnerships include technology infrastructure projects, and that
each type of infrastructure has its own partnership requirement.
The third trend in SDG-11 literature focusing on social justice
aspects of ICT (Schuilenburg, 2015; Pali and Schuilenburg,
2019), is the absence of environmental impacts.
in recognizing the increasing energy costs of ICT for smart cities,
but advocating for green ICT solutions. As determined by Wang
et al. (2021), although the energy usage per device is decreasing
over time, the number of ICT devices is increasing at a faster
rate than the reduction in energy consumption, resulting in a
net increase in overall energy use. In agreement with the broad
approach utilized by Crawford (2021) to analyze the social and
environmental impacts of AI, an alternative more sustainable
governance framework for Smart Cities needs to address the
energy usage, material supply chain, and local distribution of
benefits and risks for global and local stakeholders. We identify
broad environmental impacts of ICT projects where the focus
of literature has been too narrow, as well as deep environmental
impacts localized within cities where the literature has not been
specific on the uneven distribution of risk and benefits.
Discourse on SDG-11, smart cities,
and ICT
Limited ICT discourse in SDG-11
literature
This section describes the intersectional literature between
SDG-11 and ICT. We find a number of limitations in the
literature in the discourse of ICT in SDG-11 literature. Thomas
et al. (2021) argue that achieving SDG-11 goals requires the
additional collection of local and disaggregated data enabled by
ICT. In a trend including other scholars arguing for additional
collection of data for SDGs, Thomas et al. (2021) do not describe
the costs of obtaining additional data, particularly the social
costs of datafication (Dencik et al., 2019) and environmental
costs (Ensmenger, 2018). Rozhenkova et al. (2019) advocates
for SDG-11 related databases, that will enable common data
to be compared across cities, therefore recognizing the need
for physical infrastructure required for data storage and
management. At the same time Rozhenkova et al. (2019) do
not address the material aspects of data storage requirements,
particularly the social costs (Bouk, 2017) and environmental
costs of data storage (Hogan, 2015). The first trend in SDG11 literature is an absence of consideration of social and
environmental impact of ICT based collection and storage of
additional data related to SDG-11 indicators, increasing the risks
of increased data collection and storage impacts on social and
environmental justice.
In the limited SDG-11 literature that does consider
environmental impacts of ICT, Allam and Jones (2021) point
to the communications aspects of ICT and the physical
manifestation of 6G network implementation including devices
and connections, and point to ICT as being part of the
communication infrastructure required for achievement of
SDG-11 for smart and sustainable cities. Allam and Jones
(2021) usefully point to the number of devices required and
Frontiers in Sociology
Environmental discourse in critical smart
city literature
The previous section highlighted SDG-11 literature that
included discourse on ICT implementation. In this section we
broaden the approach of examining literature by highlighting
critical Smart City literature with discourse on environmental
impacts that include other SDGs in addition to SDG-11.
The term “Smart City” is a nebulous term, but in general
it has come to represent a city which intensively utilizes
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to achieve
its goals (Ingwersen and Serrano-López, 2018). Critical Smart
City literature describes smart cities through critiques of
both concepts and existent implementations of Smart Cities
(Kitchin, 2015). The majority of critical Smart City literature
is a sociological critique, pointing to the replication of social
inequities by adding a layer of ICT solutions to existing
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inequitable power structures. In the context of this paper, we
utilize the literature to identify both breadth and depth of
social and environmental impacts across Smart City related
ICT projects.
In a systematic review of Information Systems (IS) literature,
Ismagilova et al. (2019) summarize that Smart Cities have
the potential to deliver many UN Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs). In the same article, Ismagilova et al. (2019)
point to the increasing research on holistic aspects of Smart
Cities, “including citizens, quality of living and sustainability”
(p. 97). Therefore, although a significant portion of Smart City
literature is focused on positive synergies between Smart Cities
and SDGs, there is a recognition of a research gap in the
combination of social and environmental issues. In a more
interdisciplinary literature review, Bibri and Krogstie (2017b)
highlight the interdependency between sustainability and Smart
Cities, utilizing the term “sustainable smart cities”. Bibri and
Krogstie (2017b) usefully point out that Smart Cities may pose
risks to environmental sustainability, due to increasing energy
usage and lifecycle impact of ICT, similar to previous described
articles by Goel et al. (2021) and Obaid et al. (2021). The
existing gaps in research identified by Bibri and Krogstie (2017b)
include: “There is a need for theory for comparing potential
models of smart sustainable city according to their contribution
to sustainability goals and smartness targets as an integrated
approach.” In a separate article, Bibri and Krogstie (2017a)
highlight the importance of power dynamics in the collection
and use of data for Smart Cities, again pointing to the negative
impacts of energy usage and lifecycle impact of ICT. Therefore,
there are some authors engaged in critical Smart City literature
usefully identifying both social and environmental impacts of
ICT while describing the intersection of Smart Cities and SDGs.
The literature on Smart Cities and SDGs are often specific to
particular geographical Smart City implementations. In a paper
focused on Finnish cities, Ahvenniemi et al. (2017) describe
the differences between Smart Cities and sustainable cities,
identifying some overlaps as well as differences. In terms of
differences, Ahvenniemi et al. (2017) find that Smart Cities in
Finland focus on social and economic sustainability, and to a
lesser extent environmental sustainability, therefore alluding to a
critical gap in the implementation of Smart Cities. In agreement
with the systematic review completed by Yigitcanlar et al. (2019),
we conclude that not all Smart City projects are environmentally
sustainable, but that environmental sustainability is a necessary
condition for Smart City projects in achieving broader goals
related to SDGs.
There is a related emerging literature that is critical of
Smart Cities and their impacts on environmental sustainability.
Michalec et al. (2019) describe sustainable Smart City initiatives
in the city of Bristol, including electric vehicles and energy
retrofits, and conclude that equity issues, although mentioned,
were not adequately addressed. Therefore, Smart City projects
often focus on achieving environmental goals through the
Frontiers in Sociology
implementation of ICT but fail to consider social equity
implications. In an earlier article, Saha and Paterson (2008)
emphasize the discourse of sustainable development for cities
includes three E’s (Environment, Economic development,
Equity) and yet the majority of initiatives largely focus on
environmental and economic development aspects, and few
include concrete equity outcomes. Therefore, there is a pattern
of discourse, of discussing social equity goals in Smart City
literature, but a lack of mechanisms for measurement of social
equity goals at the same level of detail as environmental
goals. The issues of environmental justice and social justice
need to be addressed as overlapping issues. In other words,
increased environmental risks are often experienced by the
same groups that face increased social risks of Smart City
projects. Levenda et al. (2015) describe the political economy
of energy distribution and the “smartening” of the energy
grid, concluding that the Smart City projects examined result
in additional data collection for marketing with few benefits
for citizens. The social inequities generated by additional data
collection have been pointed out by Couldry and Mejias (2019)
and Dencik et al. (2019). To achieve equity goals in the
development of Smart Cities, Sharma et al. (2016) point toward
the importance of digital literacy in addressing environmental
issues for Smart Cities, and the importance of ensuring equity
in digital literacy in reducing the digital divide that exists in
many cities. Therefore, some of the Smart City risk mitigation
solutions and interventions such as digital literacy can be
implemented for equity-seeking groups, and ideally address both
social and environmental risks. The digital divide, which is a
significant contributor to unequal social justice outcomes, is
rarely examined in critical Smart City literature that addresses
environmental issues.
Discussion and conclusion
This paper reviewed the intersectional literature between
ICT and SDG-11. The first trend in SDG-11 literature is an
absence of consideration for the social and environmental
impact of ICT based collection and storage of additional data
related to SDG-11 indicators, increasing the risks of uneven
social justice. The second general trend in SDG-11 literature
that does include environmental impacts of ICT, is a lack
of consideration of the globalized social justice impacts of
ICT. The third trend in SDG 11 literature focusing on social
justice aspects of ICT is the absence of environmental impacts.
Next, we examined the environmental discourse in critical
Smart City literature which identifies a number of research
gaps including social and environmental impacts, and we
conclude that not all Smart City projects are environmentally
sustainable, but that environmental sustainability is a necessary
condition for Smart City projects in achieving broader
goals related to SDGs. Usefully identifying gaps requiring
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10.3389/fsoc.2022.995603
additional research, we find examples of discourse on
political economy and the digital divide in critical Smart
City literature that simultaneously address environmental
issues. More broadly, we have identified common areas
of concern that positions ICT infrastructures within the
sustainable development discourse more immediately,
while revealed differences point to areas for further study.
This review contributes to SDG research areas on urban
inclusion, climate citizenship, social polarization and
the equitable distribution of benefits and risks in Smart
City projects.
SDGs (Parmentola et al., 2022). At the same time, the area
of concern is the energy usage by Blockchain technology
(Goodkind et al., 2020). The energy usage by popular
Blockchains such as Bitcoin rival the energy consumption
of entire countries (Beall, 2017). While there are many
benefits to utilizing Blockchain technology to develop more
sustainable supply chains and energy management systems,
the balance between Blockchain simultaneously being part
of the solution and part of the problem is a research area
of interest.
Fourth, we explicitly identify an underlying tension and
tradeoffs between social justice and environmental justice for
Smart City projects (Tretter, 2013). Achieving social justice
goals does not necessarily accomplish environmental justice
goals, and vice versa. Valencia et al. (2019) point out the
existence of conflict between SDGs. Future research can explore
this argument by identifying conflict within specific SDGs
such as SDG-11. Examples of ICT projects which on one
hand advance the goals within SDGs and simultaneously
effect their own, often unrecognized environmental costs,
can be utilized to highlight the conflicts within specific
SDG sub-goals.
Future research
One area of future research is the impact of ICT projects
and associated rebound effects. Early literature on the net
energy usage of ICT, accounting for rebound effects, was
optimistic on the net reduction in energy usage (Rodríguez Casal
et al., 2005). More recent literature is more pessimistic about
the net energy use, including the rebound effect (Marvuglia
et al., 2020). In a related development described in this
paper, Wang et al. (2021) indicate although the energy usage
per device is decreasing over time, the number of ICT
devices is increasing at a faster rate than the reduction in
energy consumption, resulting in a net increase in overall
energy use. Similarly, Allam and Jones (2021) point to the
number of devices required and the increased energy demand
anticipated by the increased number of devices to achieve
the communication infrastructure benefits of 6G networks.
Research on rebound effects focused on the social and
environmental impacts of ICT is a much needed area of
additional knowledge.
A second area of future research is the use of Artificial
Intelligence (AI) in the achievement of SDGs. AI is increasingly
being used in analysis and modeling for SDGs (Palomares
et al., 2021). At the same time, there is a recognition that AI
can have both positive and negative impacts on achievement
of SDGs (Vinuesa et al., 2020). The areas of concern include
increased energy usage by large AI projects (Strubell et al.,
2019; Bender et al., 2021), as well as the material impacts of
the lifecycle of AI (Crawford, 2021), and political ecnomy of
control of AI infrastructure (Whittaker, 2021). Broad research
combining the social and environmental impacts of specific
ICT projects, such as AI Large Language Models are lacking
in literature, whereas these applications are becoming more
prevalent portending an increase in energy requirements and
social impacts.
A third area of future research is the use of Blockchain
technology in the achievement of SDGs. Blockchain technology
is increasingly being used in analysis and modeling for
Frontiers in Sociology
Author contributions
Both authors listed have made a substantial, direct,
and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it
for publication.
Funding
Funding for the online publication of this article was
provided by Algoma University.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the
absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could
be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the
authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated
organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the
reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or
claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed
or endorsed by the publisher.
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