Environmental sustainability initiatives (ESI) and smart cities components implementation (SCCI): A preliminary study on the selected city council in Malaysia

• Published in: AIP Conference Proceedings
• Main Author: Hamzah N.F.; Hasim M.S.; Ariff N.R.M.; Adnan H.; Yussof F.N.M.
• Format: Conference paper
• Language: English
• Published: American Institute of Physics Inc. 2023
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85176770401&doi=10.1063%2f5.0167586&partnerID=40&md5=30c3c0c35091fd79b6a514dd4600b455

Rapid development in the whole country has led to rapid urbanisation in the city. This situation has caused various urbanisation issues that affect the environment, economy, and social sustainability agenda. The smart city concept was introduced to resolve city issues and strengthen sustainability. The implementation of the smart city involves seven components that are expected to overcome the city's problems, including supporting the environmental dimension. This environmental dimension needs to be integrated into the smart city implementation to ensure its construction can be streamlined and well-functioned. However, limited studies focus on local authority's environmentally sustainable initiatives that support the smart city, and more study has yet to discover the smart city components implementation in Malaysia. Therefore, this study provides preliminary information on the Environmental Sustainability Initiatives and smart city components implementation by Malaysian local authorities, focusing on the City Council. The objectives are to identify the types of environmental initiatives, the most prominent initiatives, and smart city components implemented by local authorities. In achieving the study objectives, a qualitative method using content analysis techniques was adopted using the latest Annual Report for 2019 for selected City Councils. The study highlights 13 thirteen environmental themes with 40 initiatives and discovered the Smart City Components Implementation through 22 initiatives disclosed in the annual report. According to the Malaysian context, these preliminary results indicate that Malaysian local authorities are catching up in cultivating environmental sustainability and progressing toward a smart city. However, since the performance is currently ongoing, more strategies and efforts are needed for further improvement to ensure the effectiveness and impact of the practices not only on the organisation but also on the community and city. Therefore, more serious efforts and additional improvement strategy needed to accelerate the current condition towards betterment. Indeed, the findings could guide other local authorities in Malaysia as benchmarking in becoming a smart city. © 2023 Author(s).