The theme of this year conference is “Smart cities, smart sustainability” and will focus on the social, environmental and energy-related impacts of the rising urbanization and globalization trends. Indeed, since 2008 more than half the world’s population is living in urban areas and this trend is continuously rising.

This phenomenon raises a number of questions, which will be addressed during SBC 2012:

• Is urbanization an unavoidable evil or is it the only sustainable growth model?
• How can we take advantage from the environmental challenges that threaten the planet, to rethink and build better cities?
• How can we guarantee a harmonic development of our cities under the new impressive urbanization wave?
• How can we reconcile the right to economic development of emerging countries (which often implies a massive urbanization trend) with the respect for environment?
• How can we guarantee an equal access to resources (economic, energetic, environmental, infrastructural, social) to the new citizens – in particular to the poor layers of society?

The main objective of this track is to enable existing and upcoming cities solve the fundamental problem of energy and waste generation plaguing them, in a manner that satisfies all four pillars of sustainability – economical, social, environment and institutional. The focus is to help derive solutions that address the challenges of consumer demand and production supply with a minimal ecological impact. The track focuses on three panel discussions:

Reducing energy intensity in urban spaces: The panel discussion will try to derive solutions to reduce energy intensity in cities. The main focus is to create a dialogue between smart grids and other alternate energy efficient solutions, especially in view of current economic environment and given the capital intensive nature of some of these solutions.

Can renewable energy a pragmatic solution for meeting energy requirements?  The focus of the panel discussion is to explore the possibility of renewable energy as a technological and economical feasible alternate to conventional sources for meeting our energy requirements. The panel discussion will also focus on the way forward for nuclear energy especially in aftermath of Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Solid Waste Management: The panel discussion will focus on recommending ways to minimize urban waste generation and sustainable waste management solutions. The main focus is to recommend most suitable solution from various available waste management options especially waste recycling and waste to energy.

How can cities address the social challenges brought by rapidly increasing urbanization?

FOOD: In the context of rapidly urbanizing countries, being able to transform agriculture to feed the growing population, in the face of a changing climate, without hindering the natural resource base, will achieve food security goals. Agriculture not only suffers the impact of climate change, it is also responsible for 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions and has the potential to be an important part of its solution. In this panel we will discuss how to develop a more productive and resilient agriculture that will better manage natural resources, and genetic resources while limiting emissions.

WATER: The future of water treatment is uncertain. Many developed and developing countries face challenges of large energy demands for conventional and emerging treatment processes, dwindling supply of uncontaminated sources, and increasing demand for safe water due to population growth. In this panel, we will discuss various innovative technologies and implementation conducted by both the public and private domains to address the challenges facing the provision of accessible, safe and reliable drinking water.

EDUCATION: Lack of access to quality education is a challenge in developing and developed urban areas. The resources required are often not provided by public sector entities or are insufficient. The result is overcrowded schools, low quality teachers, and poor student results. There have been several solutions proposed by various NGOs, private and non-profit organizations to bring “alternative” high-quality education to impoverished areas.In this panel we will discuss the criteria that define the quality of an education system and identify the challenges faced by governments and public administrations in selecting and scaling successful projects.

Several recent independent research initiatives suggest that together with increased urbanization and growth of cities, large investments in sustainable city infrastructure are necessary in order to eliminate negative effects of growing cities on environment. Nevertheless, this is only part of the story, successful cities for the future will be those that will embrace the idea of sustainability and turn it to an opportunity to create a great place to live.

Our first panel discussion will bring examples of cities that launched (un)successful implementations or have plans for implementation of sustainable infrastructure project in an effort to become environmentally friendlier. We aim to invite architects, policy makers and other stakeholders involved in those projects to discuss the benefits and challenges encountered as well as the future implications for other cities considering such initiatives.

As urban road transportation is one of the main contributors to global CO2 emissions, improvements in this area are key to achieve 2050 targets set by Global summits on Climate change. The second panel will focus on several possible initiatives such as Global System of Mobility, available technologies, and ways of implementation.

Major investments in sustainable city infrastructure and development will be necessary in the next decades, but as those investments will be large and main part of them will have to be made in the developing world, an urgent question of how to finance such activities arises. This panel will discuss the financing possibilities, risks and opportunities connected to such investments. More concretely, involvement of large institutional investors together with private investors in financing sustainable city infrastructure projects will be discussed, as it is often the only option of financing this kind of initiatives.