As the intensity of impact of climate change become more evident, making built environment developments more sustainable offers real pragmatic means of mitigation.

There are proven smart innovations, technological advancements, and business models that can assist to build more smarter and sustainable cities for their citizens, while adhering to guiding principles for the people’s quality of life, urban operations, safety, and more efficient services for boosting its competitiveness.

The global pandemic, Covid, has also intensified the sustainable cities development goal more imperative, and as a result making the social good become a higher priority for many parts of the world. Although the full implementation opportunities and challenges differ from country to county- and within the regions, depending on the population size, progress maturity as well as other local factors, but the crisis clearly highlighted need for smart city developments that integrate both technical and social solutions.

Against this background, this session briefly outlines conceptual framework of a smart sustainable city, drivers as well as barriers for such development, and highlight some the key urban transformation trends that could shape the future- largely based on insights from the experts and critique of current practices. Thus, seek to further drive constructive dialogues for driving sustainable cities agenda for climate change mitigation and citizen well-being through collaborative approach.

Mukesh Limbachiya is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Kingston University with a wide-ranging career in higher education and an acknowledged authority in the areas of sustainable concrete construction. He has worked in Asia, England, Europe, Scotland, and the UAE as an expert consultant and independent advisor in the curriculum development, research projects, product development, research funding assessor and delivery of skills training projects. He featured in 2022 Stanford University’s List of World’s Top 2% Scientists for the 3rd year in a row.