Impact : ESG & Smart cities

The quality of urban life should be continuously improved, and various situations and assets in the city should be efficiently and valuably operated. The ultimate goal is to create a sustainable city that provides convenience and safety to citizens, ensuring the ongoing prosperity of their lives. Particularly, essential urban infrastructure such as roads, transportation, water, and electricity needs to be efficiently managed using emerging technologies that promote sustainable development. By collecting and utilizing public data, it becomes possible to address diverse urban problems, leading to the creation of new value.

As cities develop, issues arising from the increase in population and environmental impacts due to transportation continue to emerge. To overcome these challenges, it is necessary to go beyond the collection and utilization of information and communication technology and develop spatial technologies tailored to the characteristics of each city and its residential areas. The city should strive for smart infrastructure customization, carbon neutrality execution, ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) management, actively participating in global environmental initiatives.

There is a need for an integrated plan for the future development of cities. While addressing current urban environmental issues may be a solution for continuous development, it is challenging to overcome realistic limitations with the limited budgets and resources cities possess. A 'Smart City' approach that integrates representative ICT and various emerging technologies is required to maximize the sustainable development and values of cities for the future.

Connecting the core growth drivers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to urban infrastructure technology allows the operation of a data-integrated city. This can result in significant synergies through various technologies integrated into the city, providing overall necessary services to urban societies and creating opportunities for new added value.

Building a service-centric platform that integrates ESG city management with Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies is crucial. It must fulfill the technological requirements demanded by the city and the functions desired by citizens. The outcomes of these technologies and functions will serve as a solid foundation for enhancing urban competitiveness through structural transformation and increased efficiency.

A Smart City under ESG city management can achieve effects such as improving the quality of citizens' lives, expanding the convenience of transportation, and enhancing energy efficiency for carbon neutrality. The sustainability of the city can, on a macro level, become a platform for fostering new industries for the country.

ESG management, focusing on Environmental, Social, and Governance aspects, signifies a commitment by companies or organizations to achieve sustainable development through environmentally friendly practices, socially responsible management, and transparent governance. Companies significantly impact the indicators of corporate value based on how effectively and continuously they achieve medium to long-term objectives. Recently, there has been an increased emphasis on indicators related to sustainability, corporate value, and non-financial performance.

Unlike past quantitative indicators and evaluations, there is a growing importance placed on future-oriented qualitative indicators. Smart cities, therefore, require considerable attention to qualitative indicators. In South Korea, a smart city is defined legally as an intelligent facility that applies converging technologies such as construction, information, and communication to infrastructure and public facilities under the 'National Land Planning and Utilization Act.' Consequently, it is a city that has implemented a smart platform with Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), CPS (Cyber-Physical Systems), BDS (Big Data Solutions), and other ICT (Information and Communication Technology) innovations.

Source: Siheung Citizen News (http://www.ssnews.co.kr)