Sustainability spotlight


Peter Ruffley, CEO at Zizo, discusses the challenges that local authorities face with retrofitting buildings and cities with smart environmental technology, and how edge computing could be a low-cost and low-carbon solution.


Local authority carbon neutral strategies are adding to, not reducing, their carbon footprint


A


lmost nine in ten councils have declared a climate emergency – but faced with multiple, oſten contradictory, pressures and targets, how many have


any confidence in the next steps to take? Most have highlighted the challenges of balancing carbon targets with budgetary constraints. Many recognise the problem in achieving change – especially retrofitting an extensive building estate with smart environmental technology – without massive, unpopular citizen upheaval. Very few, however, realise that the strategies they are planning


to adopt to determine the current state of carbon emissions, namely collecting vast quantities of data and storing it in the


32 | February 2022


cloud, are creating a huge additional carbon footprint that could undermine any chance of achieving carbon neutral status for years to come. Technology infrastructure and data storage is already one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions – so where is the justification for adding enormous quantities of cloud based environmental data to the mix? Time is not on the side of any local authority. Rather than


embarking upon an expensive, carbon draining, speculative smart technology procurement that may never deliver, switched-on authorities should consider pragmatic, tactical and low carbon alternatives that leverage Edge computing to deliver immediate insight, control and results.


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