Indicators and Actions for the Smart and Sustainable City: A Study on Italian Metropolitan Cities

In recent years, there has been a wide diffusion of two concepts, the Sustainable City and the Smart City. Considering the several definitions of Smart City, it arises that the two concepts can have many commonalities. For instance, the most obvious refers to the role of ICT—main characteristic of the Smart City—for reaching the goal of sustainability. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to compare the current status of environmental sustainability in some Italian cities with the strategies regarding the “Environment” dimension, which are adopted in accordance with the Smart City concept. In the first part, the paper proposes a brief summary of the cities surveyed from an environmental perspective. In the second part, the methodology implemented during research is illustrated. The third part highlights the results obtained in relation both to the definition of the cities’ status in terms of environmental sustainability and of assessing their propensity towards the implementation of a “smart” approach in the Environmental dimension, thanks also to a detailed analysis of projects underway in the various cities. Finally, the last part is aimed at highlighting the specific experiments underway and challenges identified during the research.