Building Green Smart City Capabilities in South Sumatra, Indonesia

Abstract

Information and communication technology is currently developing rapidly. It has created a great number of opportunities for governments worldwide to meet the demands of the public in providing services including environmentally friendly public services for the community and citizens. This study aims to present a case study on public services of South Sumatra government programs in order to develop a green smart city concept by combining smart city and green IT concepts which aim to align and incorporate green IT components, including pollution prevention, product stewardship, and clean technology into conceptual variants, essential elements, and strategic principles. A smart city is an innovative and modern concept utilising technology to facilitate and provide public information and to improve environmentally friendly public services through smart applications. South Sumatera is one of the provinces in Indonesia that has been implementing a smart city to provide environmentally friendly public services through the command centre. It is used to monitor an entire government agency’s activities and communicates with the public. To fulfil the aims of the study, this study identifies the comprehensive environmentally friendly public services through Natural Resource-Based View Theory perspectives. In addition, this study deploys in-depth interviews with sources or informants as a form of data search and direct observation. The number of informants used as research respondents consisted of several elements of the government, including the executive, legislative, and implementing agencies. The study reveals that the South Sumatera Government has several environmentally friendly public services that could be deployed to prevent pollution and reduce the emission in their activities. Further, the government in South Sumatra has product and service stewardships and invests in clean technology to minimise the adverse impacts of their activities on the environment.