• demographic changes - what are future urban populations likely to be?

• construction and urbanisation - what kind of city structures will be inhabited?

• work and income - how will people work and earn their living?

• services - what kind of public services and private service providers will be utilised?

• leisure and social interaction - how will citizens spend time and what will they value?

• transportation - how will people move around in the urban environment?

• security and safety – what will be different in terms of safety and security compared to the urban environments of today?

Smart cities of the future are likely to be even more reliant on information and data in order to enable greater automation and robotics. Subsequently, this will no doubt potentially lead to an increasing use of technologies such as Blockchain, AI, IoT, self-driving cars, additive manufacturing (as manufacturing ‘on-shores’- returning to the countries in which the products are consumed). It has been argued that ‘data will be like oil’  for our economies going forward. If this is the case, and more value is to be accredited to data, it will mean that the data itself becomes more valuable and needed (potentially by more parties). This, is turn, offers an opportunity to ‘package’ and monetise data and thereby trade the data in a similar way that historically other assets, such as equities and bonds, have been traded.  

A few years ago, people were proclaiming, “Yes, happy to buy books on-line, but not clothes” as they preferred to go to a shop, try on clothes, see different designs, let alone buy food. “Surely it is better to look and inspect the food, rather than buy on-line?” How wrong this has proved to be? Significantly, with office workers globally now having worked from home for several months due to Covid-19, will these same employees of the future really need to be located in an office building? Responses to this question are likely to depend on one’s own personal circumstances, such as type of job, age and industry sector. For example, a younger, single people are most likely to regard a city as an exciting place where they can socialise, eat and drink, network and enjoy the culture on offer. Conversely, an individual with a young family would potentially place more importance on access to open spaces, less congestion and the need for a larger home/garden for a growing family. It is interesting to observe not only how quickly people have embraced remote working (and, with it, conference calls etc) but also how quickly companies and employees have adjusted to it. Parallel to this, there are the added environmental benefits of less pollution and the saving of time as a result of not being able to commute into the office. The ‘challenges’ of raising a family whilst working from home has been shown to be a viable option.

These smart cities of tomorrow are going to be able to unlock the value of waste and those no longer required materials by using Blockchain technology. After all, it has been said, 'Waste is just material without information’. Blockchain technology offers an efficient way of collecting information required which will ensure construction materials used in modern cities avoid becoming unwanted waste. This would surely add value to those previously regarded waste materials were they to be resold at something close to their ‘as-new’ value rather than at salvage or scrap prices.

Alongside this, we are also witnessing a growing awareness and interest in the ‘circular economy’, where materials are manufactured with the mindset that they are to be reused recycled in the future. Indeed, it is often argued there is no such thing as waste  - in theory, every residual stream can be used to make a new product. According to the Ella MacArther Foundation, producers are able to take back their products after use and repair them for a new useful life, adding, “It is therefore not only important that materials are recycled properly, but also that products, components and raw materials remain of high quality in these cycles”. 

The arguments for a closed economy are potentially highly attractive not just in terms of helping to protect the environment, but also in terms of job creation, having more sustainability and ultimately saving money.

The estimated benefits of a closed economy for the Netherlands

Source: The Ella MacArther Foundation

Again, Blockchain technology can help by offering the ability to track and trace materials as they are used and then re-used. Cities of the future are likely to rely more and more on renewable energy from micro-energy generation, which will be fostered by encouraging increased ‘p2p’ trading. Blockchain technology will be able to track where and for whom the electricity has been generated and used, thus encouraging greater investment in micro- generation.

In Nevada, USA, there are plans to build a 68,000-acre town which would be of a similar size to Reno (which was famous for silver mining during the height of the California gold rush 

in the 19th century) with Blockchain technology at its core. Plans for this new city were announced in 2018 with Jeffrey Berns, the CEO of this project and a crypto currency millionaire, stating, “The site is roughly the size of Reno” and describing the proposal as “a series of projects to highlight the power of public blockchain”. The homes, banks, shops and schools will all include the use of Blockchain.

Cities are ever evolving as our needs for them alter, increasingly relying on progressive technology as they become smarter and more automated. The use of Blockchain technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) additive manufacturing (3-D printing) will all, no doubt, play a role. The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the focus on trends such as recycling, working from home, onshoring manufacturing and p2p energy trading that had, themselves, already been developing for a while.

Many of the companies involved in offering greater transparency over their food supply chains are using a combination of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT). The information collected and stored by these technologies are then often accessible on mobile devices, including cell phones by using Quick Response (QR) codes. This enables various parties (along often complex supply chains which can in some cases span the world) to track and trace the journey of the goods  - how they are being transported, where they have come from, the temperature conditions in which they have been stored under, even the details of the trawler on which they were caught or the fields they were grown in.

Almost five years ago, in November 2015, a white paper (business proposition) was released by a company called Provenance, stating that, “Provenance enables every physical product to come with a digital ‘passport’ that proves authenticity (Is this product what it claims to be?) and origin (Where does this product come from?), creating an auditable record of the journey behind all physical products.” Provenance went on to quote Marc Andreessen who, in 1993, invented the first internet browser, Mosaic, and when talking about it, said, “Blockchain technology changes everything. The practical consequence […is…] for the first time, a way for one Internet user to transfer a unique piece of digital property to another Internet user, such that the transfer is guaranteed to be safe and secure, everyone knows that the transfer has taken place, and nobody can challenge the legitimacy of the transfer. The consequences of this breakthrough are hard to overstate”. 

There are many other examples of different organisations using Blockchain-powered platforms to track and trace various food products, which include:

Albert Heijn – the Dutch supermarket is now able to give customers the ability to trace and trace were their oranges were grown. It is planning to be able to offer provenance of all its produce by 2025;

Agriledger – working with the World Bank, this company is helping to increase farmers’ income by 2 to 3-fold, according to a report from the Said Business School at the University of Oxford (which grow mangos and avocados in Haiti);

Bumble Bee tuna - is using Multichain, running on the SAP cloud platform , to track and trace yellowfin tuna from the time it is caught to the moment it arrives on the shelves in a shop;

California Giant Berry farm - one of the USA’s biggest berry farmers is using the IBM Food Trust blockchain for its berry supply chains in order to give customers access to the provenance details and product tracking of its berries;

Farmers Hen House - with a QR code printed on each egg, this enables consumers to know form which poultry farm an egg was produced;

Starbucks - is working with Microsoft to give Starbucks a digital traceability of its products and also to support its sustainability strategy.

Meanwhile, IBM has commissioned a report, polling nearly 19,000 consumers from 28 countries across range of age groups, in order to understand how individual purchasing decisions are evolving. The study found:

• One-third of all consumers today will stop buying their preferred products if they lose trust in the brand;

• One-third of consumers have already stopped purchasing their historic favourite brands in 2019;

• Consumers are prioritizing those brands and products that are sustainable, transparent and aligned with consumer’s core value;

• Consumers are willing to pay more, and even change their buying habits, for brands that get it right;

• Corporate values now outweigh product costs and convenience; Consumers of all ages and incomes pay much higher premiums for products aligned with their personal beliefs;

• On average, 70% of ‘purpose-driven shoppers’ pay an added premium of 35% more for sustainable purchases, such as recycled or eco-friendly goods;

• 57% of them are even willing to change their purchasing habits to help reduce negative environmental impact; 

• 79% of all consumers today state it is important for brands to provide guaranteed authenticity. Within this group, 71 % are willing to pay an added premium – 37% more – for companies offering full transparency and traceability.

IBM recommended that for retailers to gain a larger market it was necessary to, “Earn consumers' confidence through transparency and traceability…by offering convenient, quicker access to detailed information previously unnecessary, such as how the products are manufactured, quality of ingredients, if it is sustainable or ethically sourced, and under what conditions”. But then to be fair, IBM has spent millions developing and selling its Blockchain technology skills! As with any use of IT and data bases, the accuracy of the information and the reports that can be generated are only as good as the quality of the inputs i.e. ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ 

It is not simply consumer demand and buying habits that is encouraging or, some may argue, forcing new technology to be used in the food supply chains, but legislation is also driving adoption. The World Health Organization estimates that 420,000 people die annually from food contamination. In the USA, the Food Safety and Modernization Act has introduced controls regarding food imports. Meanwhile, the European Union’s Trade Control and Expert System is designed to provide food traceability and risk-management so that traded plants or animal-based products can be tracked and monitored throughout the food supply chain.