éco-intelligentes”.
17 “El derecho a la accesibilidad a la luz de la igualdad y no discriminación de las personas con discapacidad física en el sistema de transporte público en Bogotá”.
18 “Urbanismo y género. El derecho de las mujeres a la ciudad”.
19 “Gentrificación, derechos y posibilidades de moradores en proyectos de renovación urbana de iniciativa pública en Bogotá”.
20 “Las disparidades de crecimiento económico: instituciones económicas regionales rentistas”.
LAS RECONFIGURACIONES DE LAS LIBERTADES PÚBLICAS
The Smart Green Communities in the Informational City
William Gilles*
On the 50th anniversary of the OECD, the Secretary-General of this organization highlighted that “we need growth without environmental damage and without worsening social inequalities and regional imbalances. That means taking a path radically different from that of the countries that industrialized in the 19th and 20th centuries”1.
The development of smart green communities attempts to meet this challenge by helping local governments to reconcile economic growth and environmental concerns. The digital society has created a new context that could help governments to reach this objective as local authorities can increase the efficiency of their environment policies thanks to the information and communication technologies (ICTs). “ICTs can play a significant role to improve the carbon footprint of cities by moving to a more intelligent use of energy”2, but not only in this sector. According to the European Union, “it is clear that ICT should be the connection to enable exploitation of potential synergies among the various ‘smart’ realms of activity that will all help achieve carbon neutrality in cities. These realms include energy in buildings, electric mobility, eHealth, eCare, and eGovernance”3. In this context, smart city solutions should generate a global market of USD 408 billion by 2020, of which a quarter should concern solution design, research and engineering services4.
The reason of this significant role of new technologies in smart green projects is that ICTs are “the ‘innovation gene’ for smart cities, the core source for the interoperable networked application that break the barrier between industry and the public sector to bring tangible improvement to people’s lives”5. This may explain why 28 European cities6 have signed the Green digital charter launched by the European Union in 2009. In this Charter, which is a response to recommendations of the European Commission7, mayors and leaders of those European cities acknowledge that “information and communication technologies are critical enablers for sustainable growth and must be integrated into the work of European cities to mitigate climate change”; that “European good practices for low-emissions ICT must be based on the practical experience of public authorities who can set an example for others”; and that “cities can lead Europe in maximizing the potential for ICT to reduce emissions, by delivering innovative technical solutions and encouraging behavioral change,”8 the signatories of the Charter commit among others to develop cities as platforms for innovation in order to favor low carbon activities, to serve as an example for the private sector and the wider community in the green digital agenda by developing their own ICT infrastructure and digital services with the smallest carbon footprint, and to support the development of open innovation and low carbon activities9. Finally, the signatory cities aim to “decrease ICT direct carbon footprint per city by 30 % by 2020.”
This objective, however, should not be pursued only by cities, but more generally by communities. The reduction of the carbon footprint or the will to benefit from the smartness of the smart green projects should not be reserved to cities and urban areas but should also be a part of the development strategies of rural areas. For this reason, the expression “Smart green communities” is further appropriate.
Because all communities (urban and rural communities) have to face the new context created by the arrival of the Internet and the development of ICTs in a digital era, we will deal with smart green communities, and not only about smart green cities. Our society, called the information society, corresponds to a new era where data are at the core of the ecosystem. Because of their value for the economy, companies aim to collect more and more data in order to develop their business. Because it helps understand human behavior, governments also use and reuse data. Of course, some governments use data for mass surveillance, but the same also collect data in order to improve our living conditions, in particular at the local level.
Because local governments are the closest layer of government to local people, they are more sensitive to the daily lives and well-being of their populations. Thus, one might not be surprised to see that communities try, in a digital age, to use ICT tools in order to become smarter and to implement better public policies regarding environmental sustainability issues (§ 1). Making communities smarter and greener should, however, not be regarded as an aim in itself. The objective is above all to favor better lives within an environmentally friendly framework that respects fundamental rights against the uncontrolled collect, use and reuse of our personal data (§ 2).
§ 1 – Smarter Communities for Better Green Public Policies
A. Better Green Public Policies for Responding to Current Issues
Imagine a country where 97 % of the territory is covered by water, but only 1 % is potable10; a country where more than one in six people cannot access to drinking water11, knowing that everyone on Earth needs every day at least 20 to 50 liters of clean and safe water to ensure its daily subsistence12; a country where the water cost has increased by 30 % in 5 years13; a country where 25 persons out of 100,000 die every year because of diseases caused by the low-quality water while others suffer from serious diseases for the same reasons14.
Imagine a country where 22 % of the population cannot access to electricity; a country where 2 million people die every year because of the low quality of the energy for cooking15; a country where nevertheless the global electric consumption has been multiplied by more than 3 in almost 4 decades and is still in a constant growth; a country where the global energy demand will grow by 37 % by 204016 and where the global electricity demand will double by 2050.
Finally, imagine a country where the emission of carbon dioxide has increased by 52 % in 22 years; a country where almost 25 % of the CO2 emissions in the world come from electricity, and 20 % from transportations17.
We all know this country. In reality, these features are not those of a country, but those of the Earth. As explained previously, the access to water is more and more difficult for a part of the population as the price is constantly increasing. This assertion is true both for developing countries and developed countries as the Rickards Real Cost Water Index shows. According to this index, calculated by IBM in local currency, the Water cost has increased by 32.9 % from the beginning of 2008 to the end of 2013 (+ 16.9 %, if calculated in USD). As a comparison, in the 4th quarter of 2013, water costs $0.34 in Manila (+ 28.3 % since 2008, if calculated in local currency), $0.97 in Sao Paulo (+ 32 % since 2008, if calculated in local currency), $1.61 in Singapore (+ 50 % since 2008, if calculated in local currency), $1.97 in San Antonio (+ 22 % since 2008, if calculated in local currency),
