A number of key industry bodies have published comprehensive papers on the economic, environmental and social benefits of investing in smart technology. There are over 30 reports from 20 different organisations. While each report is significant in its own right we felt that three recent reports in particular should be highlighted:
- GeSI: SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age (2008)
- Access Economics: The economic benefits of intelligent technologies (May 2009)
- ICD: Reducing Greenhouse Gases Through Intense Use of Information and Communication Technology (November 2009)
Each report has a slightly different focus but the areas in common have been highlighted below in the table below. It examines available ICT initiatives for eight economic sectors and highlights corresponding net benefits. Each ICT initiative links very closely with four of the key government initiatives (Infrastructure Priorities, Climate Change Strategy, Digital Economy, National Energy Efficiency) that are shown below. Overall, the net benefits from an Australian context in terms of Economic, Environmental and Social factors are:
- Economic - Boosting the economy between $35 to $80 billion dollars
- Environmental - Cutting 116 MtCO2e from Australia's emissions by 2020
- Social - Creating up to 70,000 jobs
Whilst there are more benefits than what has been included below, they were not included because there was either a lack of reference material to source or were more intangible in nature. What is now needed is action by government investing more money in smart technology so that these benefits can be fully realised.