City council appoints North to deliver Smart Waste Solution for Edinburgh

The UK’s leading IoT service and solutions provider, North, has been appointed by IT and business consulting firm, CGI, to support the City of Edinburgh Council’s vision to become one of the world’s leading Smart Cities.  

A five-year contract has been agreed to support the Council’s plans to ‘transform the capital into one of the world’s leading Smart Cities’. 

The deal is supported by a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant as part of the ‘Scotland’s 8th City – the Smart City’ programme. City of Edinburgh Council will deliver three projects budgeted at £6.4m, of which £2.5m is part of the ERDF grant. Funding secured by the Council from Zero Waste Scotland through its Recycling Improvement Fund will also be used towards the scheme.  

The development of a Smart City Operations Centre will transform and enhance city management and the citizen experience by utilising data captured through a range of emerging technologies to drive transformational change’. 

Driven by CGI’s industry-leading Smart City Platform, North was selected by CGI to provide the Smart Waste sensors and to provide connectivity for the solution through the IoT Scotland network, the most advanced Internet of Things (IoT) network in the UK. 

Intelligent sensor data will now be used to develop and drive improvements for better waste management, transmitted using North’s IoT Scotland network, allowing the City of Edinburgh Council to improve services across the city. 

The project will see North provision 11,000 smart waste sensors in waste containers throughout the city. The state-of-the-art technology will enable clever waste management by detecting waste levels and predicting usage trends, enabling the Council to optimise waste collection and manage routes more efficiently.

The smart technology will assist in creating a cleaner and greener city and will help reduce the Council’s environmental impact.  

The IoT Scotland network will also be used to transmit data for other critical services to enhance the council’s digital vision.  In parallel with the waste project the council will roll-out a digitally enabled proactive service for Social Housing across the city, using the IoT Scotland network.  

This solution will capture insightful data through real-time management and monitoring of the conditions in social housing properties.  The proactive approach for the maintenance of properties and asset management will deliver efficiencies for the council while enhancing the living conditions of their residents and improving wellbeing. 

Commenting on the partnership, City of Edinburgh Council Deputy Leader, Cammy Day, said: “Edinburgh has big ambitions for becoming a world-leading Smart City – a digitally inclusive, sustainable and connected Capital with services easily accessible by all of our residents no matter where they are.  

“The use of intelligent sensors will help us to deliver a more digitally-enabled proactive service and address many of the challenges a rapidly growing city like Edinburgh faces and will support our work towards providing clean and green communities, meeting our net zero targets and improving living conditions and wellbeing for all.” 

Scott McEwan, Chief Commercial Officer at North, said: “Edinburgh is one of seven Scottish cities working collaboratively on a Smart City programme. The introduction of the Smart City Platform will enable the Council to reach its ambitions efficiently and North is proud to accelerate this vision. 

“The use of technology to introduce intelligent waste management services will create a cost-efficient solution to everyday duties, whilst improving the streetscape and health of communities, and increasing sustainability.  Working with CGI, the roll-out of the smart waste scheme is an important step that will help Edinburgh reach its ambitions.” 

Tara McGeehan, UK & Australia President at CGI, said: “Edinburgh is a vibrant and diverse capital city that is home to more than 518,000 citizens and CGI has been the primary provider of transformational ICT services to the City of Edinburgh Council since 2015. 

“We very much look forward to taking Edinburgh’s vision of a Smart City and making it real through our innovative use of technology, analytics and data. Together, we will turn Edinburgh into one of the world’s leading Smart Cities.”