Digital Transformation from a Sustainability Perspective: The Contribution of Smart City Applications to Energy Efficiency

Abstract

With the rapid progress of digital transformation, smart home technologies have emerged as critical solutions for sustainable development and energy efficiency. This study examines the expenditures of smart city technologies on energy efficiency by comparing residential complexes in Antalya that use and do not use smart home technologies. The research focused on energy consumption, five smart home systems and five traditional residential complexes selected with an easy-to-use method. Although the records of all residences in the selected complexes were included, a total of 120 residents of each group were included in order to make comparisons under equal conditions. The findings showed that residential complexes equipped with smart systems have significantly lower energy consumption thanks to features such as automatic energy management, real-time monitoring and adaptive resource control. In contrast, higher energy consumption was observed in traditional housing estates due to inefficiencies that smart systems aim to solve. In this study, the attitudes of selected housing estates towards green behavior were also examined. For this purpose, the “Attitude Towards Green Behavior” survey developed by Çavuşoğlu et al. (2020) was used. This survey consists of 15 questions and 4 sub-dimensions: Green Behavior, Green Image, Green Customer Satisfaction and Green Customer Loyalty. The survey results revealed that those living in housing estates with smart home systems in Antalya felt a stronger attachment to their places compared to those living in traditional estates. However, no statistically significant effect was found on the other sub-dimensions. This comparative analysis highlights the potential of smart home technology to increase energy efficiency, reduce operational costs and support sustainability goals in urban housing areas and reveals that it has an impact on residents’ attachment to living in these residences. The study revealed that integrating smart home solutions into housing planning could be a strategic step towards a more energy efficient and environmentally friendly urban development and could lead to the development of a behavioral model that could come to the forefront for personal preferences. However, despite the benefits of smart technology, there are shortcomings in terms of data privacy, infrastructure investment and potential dependency on digital systems and therefore careful evaluation should be made in the steps to be taken.