Designing technology for smart and sustainable cities of tomorrow – What can we learn from IPCC’s sixth assessment report?

Abstract

Since their emergence, technologies have been applied to sustainable development in urban contexts. However, as the pace of climate change is still rapidly increasing, the question remains: what are the most urgent actions that designers of urban technology should focus on during the next ten years? In the HCI community, we need to consider the arguments of climate change experts more extensively. This paper reviews the latest recommendations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change related to technology development in an urban context, aiming to respond to these sustainable urban technology design requests. Based on the principles of social sustainability and mixed methods approach and analysis of the IPCC's sixth assessment report, this review offers insights into the most urgent challenges that technology design should focus on. The findings suggest priorities and directions for future work when the aim is to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• urban environments
• urban technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Teija Vainio

Teija Vainio (PhD) received her doctoral degree in information technology from Tampere University of Technology. Her research addresses two broad topics: human-technology interaction and urban technology design. She has a long-standing interest in the technological development of urban environments and studies architecture and regional science. Her current research interests focus on the technology design methods and design of smart, safe and sustainable urban environments. Currently, she works as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business.