Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Intelligent Communication Technologies and Virtual Mobile Networks (ICICV 2021).
IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP21ONG-ART; 978-0-7381-1183-4
Reducing Carbon Footprint for Sustainable
2021 Third International Conference on Intelligent Communication Technologies and Virtual Mobile Networks (ICICV) | 978-1-6654-1960-4/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICICV50876.2021.9388466
development of Smart Cities using IoT
Parth Asopa Poorva Purohit 
Dept. of ECE. Dept. of ECE.
JIET, Jodhpur, India. JIET, Jodhpur, India.
parthasopa@gmail.com poorvapurohit1729@gmail.c
 om
 
Abstract— As the population increases,theneed
for resources increases too which ultimately
degrades the quality of atmosphere that is
needed for the survival of human beings. As a
result, the carbon footprint increases
continuously. This literature explains a novel
method for reducing carbon footprintusingIoT
enabled green technology. The test here uses
sensors, thermostat, and arduino along with a
web portal to detect the output as a part of the
IoT method. In this study, it is found that
carbon footprint is reduced by more than 22%
for anIoTenabledbuildingwhencomparedtoa
normal building. The results aresolelybasedon
electrical and LPG consumption for a specific
time period. The mathematical modelling and
practical observations are included to validate
the result.
 ●
Keywords: Carbon footprint, IoT, Arduino,
Sensors, Climate change, GPS, Greenhouse
gases

I. INTRODUCTION
Until Dec 2020, carbondioxide(CO​2​)hasmadeup
511 ppm in the Earth's atmosphere, according to
NASA. Since CO​2 is a heat-trapping greenhouse
gas, there is a direct connection between the
volume of CO​2 in the atmosphere oftheplanetand
theclimate;thecolderitgets,themoreCO​2thereis
in the atmosphere of the earth[1]. Human action,
including deforestation and fossil fuel combustion,
has caused the volume of carbon dioxide in the
earth's atmosphere to skyrocket in recent years [2].
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Rahul Reddy Nadikattu 
Dept. of IT Dr. Pawan Whig
UC, USA Dean Research
rahulnadi6@gmail.com VIPS,New Delhi
 pawanwhig@gmail.com
Global governments, conservationists, experts, and
all of us who take climate science seriously are
deeply worried about climate change caused by
increasing CO​2 levels[4]-[6]. Our lives and
well-being could be affected by the impact of
climate change and the steps we take today to fix
CO​2 pollution will decide the fate of future
generations of life on this planet.
On behalf of any person, company, and
government,reducingCO​2emissionswouldrequire
an immense, collective effort [7]-[8]. The major
emitters of CO​2​, according to EPA.gov, are:
● Transportation | 29%
● Electricity Manufacturing | 28 percent
● Industrial | 22%
● Commercial & Housing | 12 percent
Agricultural | 9%
Even though all five of these contributors are
importantforthelivelihoodsofmillions,byfinding
effective ways to utilize and supply electricity,
there is still hope to minimize pollution[9]-[10].
Many devices for the Internet of Things (IoT) rely
on electricity to function, but somedevicesharvest
their resources [11]-[13]. As a world, bothIoTand
AI offer new possibilities that will help us use
energy storage, increase energy production, and
reduce our cumulative carbon emissions [14]-[16]
II. CARBON FOOTPRINT

A carbonfootprintreferstothecumulativequantity
of greenhouse gases (GHG) produced to, directly
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 Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Intelligent Communication Technologies and Virtual Mobile Networks (ICICV 2021).
IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP21ONG-ART; 978-0-7381-1183-4
and indirectly, benefit the lifestyle andactivitiesof
an individualasshowninFig.1..Carbonfootprints
are commonly measured in equal tonnes of CO​2
over a year cycle and can be correlated with,
among others, a person, an entity, acommodity,or
a case[17]-[19].
Figure 1. Carbon Footprint
The production and use of fossil fuels, food,
consumer goods, products, roads, or transport can
be the cause of GHGs, theamountofwhichresults
inacarbonfootprint.Anddespiteitsrelevance,itis
difficult to quantify carbon footprints specifically
because of inadequate information and brief
evidence on the dynamic relationships between
contributing mechanisms, including the effect of
natural processes that contain or emit carbon
dioxide[20]-[22].
III. IoT IN SMART CITIES
 be introduced without compromising practical
Cases of smart city usage allowed by IoT cover
several areas: from leadingtoacleaneratmosphere
and enhancing traffic to improving public safety
and street lighting optimization. Below,wegivean
outline of the most common usage cases that are
currently being applied across the globe in smart
cities.
Smart cities ensure that their residents arrive as
safely and effectively as possible from point A to
point B. Municipalities turn to IoT production and
incorporate smart traffic technologies to
accomplish this.
To calculate the number, location, and speed of
cars, smart traffic solutions use various types of
sensors and download GPS data from drivers'
smartphones. At the same time, smart traffic lights
connected to a network for cloud management
allow greenlighttimingstobetrackedandlightsto
beautomaticallychangeddependingontheexisting
traffic situation to avoid congestion. Another thing
to consider while using IoT in smart cities is the
smart consumption of energy which could be
controlled by IoT devices, thereby saving
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resources. The perfect exampleissavingelectricity
while there is no one in the building. This would
increase the efficiency oftheelectricaldevicestoo.
Such a technology would also help people find
parking spots and electrical vehiclechargingdocks
at the correct time.
The selection of solutions forsmartcitiesiswidely
diverse. What they have in common is the
implementation strategy. Whether neighborhoods
are planning to automate garbage disposalorboost
street lighting, a simple smart city platform should
begin with the base. If a municipality prefers to
extend the spectrum of smart city facilities in the
future, it would be possible, without needing to
redesign it, to update the current architecture with
modern resources and technology.
For building an effective and scalable IoT
architecture for a smart city, here is a six-step
implementation model to adopt.
BASIC IoT PLATFORM

To be able to scale, the introductionofsmartcities
should begin with the creation of a simple
infrastructure,whichwillserveasaspringboardfor
potential changes and allow additional services to
performance. Four components provide a simple
IoT approach for smart cities:
A. ​The Smart Stuff Network
Like every IoT system, a smart city uses smart
things fitted with sensors and actuators. The
immediate purpose of sensors is to gather dataand
move it on to a central platform for cloud
management. Actuators allow devices to work -
altering the lighting,restrictingtheflowofwaterto
the leakage channel, etc.
B. The Gateways
There are two elements of every IoT system: a
"tangible" portion of IoT devices and network
nodes, and a cloud component. The data does not
only move from one aspect to the other.
Doors-field gateways must exist. Through
preprocessing and filtering data before transferring
it to the cloud, field gateways enable data
collection and compression. The cloud gateway
ensures safe data transfer of a smart city solution
between field gateways and the cloud component.
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 Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Intelligent Communication Technologies and Virtual Mobile Networks (ICICV 2021).
IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP21ONG-ART; 978-0-7381-1183-4
C. Data pool or data lake
A data lake is mainly designed to store data. In
their raw state, data lakes conserve data. It is
extracted and transferred over to the big data
warehouse when the data is needed for useful
insights.
D. Large Warehouse for Data
Figure 2 Basic IoT Component
MONITORING AND ANALYTICS
Withdataanalytics,theenvironmentofdevicescan
be tracked and guidelines for control applications
can be set to execute a specific mission. For
example, by evaluating the soil moisture sensor
data distributed around a smart park,citiesmayset
rules for theclosingoropeningofelectronicvalves
depending on the level of moisture detected. The
sensor data gathered can be visualized on a single
dashboard of the app, helping visitors to know the
current status of each park area.
City administrators can go beyond surveillance &
simple analytics and detect trends and secret
associations in sensor data by analyzing
IoT-generated data. Advanced methods like
machine learning (ML) and mathematical analysis
are used in data analytics. To detect patterns and
construct predictive models based on them, ML
algorithms analyze the historical sensor data
collectedinthebigdatawarehouse.Themodelsare
used bycontrolapplicationsthatsendcommandsto
the actuators of the IoT devices. This is how it
applies.
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A single data repository is a bigdatawarehouse.It
includes only organized data, unlike data lakes. If
the value of the data has been defined,thebigdata
warehouse is extracted, converted, and loaded.
Besides, it stores contextual knowledge about
linked objects, e.g. when sensors have been
mounted, as well as instructions transmitted by
control applications to the actuators of machines.
A smarttrafficlightcanadjustsignaltimingstothe
traffic situation, unlike a conventional traffic light
that is configured to reflect a fixed signal for a
definite time. To expose traffic dynamics and
change signal timings, ML algorithms are applied
to historical sensor data, helping to increase the
average vehicle speed and prevent congestion.
CONTROLLING STAGE
By sending commands to their actuators, control
applicationsensuregreaterautomationofsmartcity
artifacts. To solve a given problem, they "tell"
actuators what to do. There are appsforrule-based
and ML-based regulation. Rules for rule-based
control applications are specified manually, while
models generated by ML algorithms are used for
ML-based control applications. Based on the data
review, these models are identified; they are
checked, accepted, and periodically revised.
USER INTERACTION
There should still be an opportunity for users to
affect the actions of smart city systems alongside
the likelihood of automatic regulation. User
programs carry out this mission. User applications
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 Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Intelligent Communication Technologies and Virtual Mobile Networks (ICICV 2021).
IEEE Xplore Part Number: CFP21ONG-ART; 978-0-7381-1183-4

allow people to connect and receive updates and
warnings to a central smart city management
network to track and operate IoT devices. A smart
traffic control solution detects a traffic jam, for
example, by using GPS data from drivers'
smartphones. The solution immediately sends a
warning to drivers in the region to avoid any
greater congestion, allowing them to take a
different path. Around the same time, workers at a
traffic control center who use a desktop-user app
get a 'congestion warning.' They give a command
to the actuators of the traffic lights to change the
signals to ease the congestion andre-routesomeof
the traffic.
INTEGRATION
It is not a one-time operation to attain
"smartness"-it is a continual operation.
Municipalities should think about utilitiesthatthey
would like to introduce tomorrow by introducing
IoT-based smart city solutionstoday.Thisinvolves
not only increasing the number ofsensorsbutalso,
more critically, increasing thenumberoffunctions.
With theexampleofasmartcitysolutionfortraffic
monitoring, let's demonstrate this practical
scalability.
solution with the air quality management solution,
this is possible.
IV. IOT IMPLEMENTATION USING
ARDUINO

IoT is one of the versatile technologies which
makes theprocessautomatictherebysavingalotof
energy. In thisresearchstudy,IoTwasenabledina
building with six people inside. Initially, we
calculate the carbon footprint in the normal
building (without IoT) based on electric
consumption and LPG usages. It is found that the
carbon footprint is 3.48 tons of CO2 perannum
in the normal building, On the other hand for the
IoT enabled building thevalueofCarbonFootprint
is2.7tonsofCO2perannum.Hencethereisatotal
saving of nearly 22.4% in the carbon footprint
using IoT-enabled building. Saving of 22.4% is
verygoodanditwillbefurtherincreasedifonecan
use commercially available sensors with high
accuracy and precision. The block diagram of IoT
enabled building is shown.

To track traffic congestion in real-time andcontrol

traffic signals to minimize traffic in areasofheavy
traffic, a town uses a traffic management solution.

The city agrees after a while to ensure that city

traffic does not affect the environment and
combines the traffic control solution with a smart
surveillance solution for air quality.

Cross-solution convergence makes it easy to
dynamically monitor both traffic and air quality in Figure 3. Block Diagram of IoT Implementation
the region. 
For that, along the highways, traffic lightsorstreet
lights may be fitted with sensors that track the
quality of air. Sensors calculate the sum of CO,
NO, and NO​2 in the air and forward data records
for processing to a central air quality control
network. If the quantity of dangerous chemicals in
the air is critical, regulation applications apply
regulations or use templates to take a production
step, such as 'moving traffic lights.' Before that,
there is a need to ensure that other places may not
cause collisions or blockages by changing traffic 
lights. Due to the combinationofthetrafficcontrol
Figure 4. Circuit implementation using Arduino

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 Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Intelligent Communication Technologies and Virtual Mobile Networks (ICICV 2021).
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shown below in Figures 5and6.Thiscanbeeasily

visualized from the bar graph that the value of
V. MATHEMATICAL MODELING Carbon footprint is more in summer than winter
due to the difference in the types of devices used.
A. ​Carbon Footprint in summer of the
Further, in Figures 7and8, itisobservedthatwith
house (6 people) without IoT (per
the application of IoT there is nearly a saving of
month)
22.4%. 
● Electrical Appliances – 499kWh
● LPG – 28 liters 
Total House footprint – 0.40 tonnes of CO​2

(0.35 tonnes – 499kwh of electricity at

0.708KgCO​2​/kWh, 0.04 tonnes – 28 liters of LPG)

B. Carbon Footprint in summer of the

house (6 people) with IoT (per month)
● Electrical Appliances – 385kwh
● LPG – 21 liters

Total House footprint – 0.31 tonnes of CO​2
Figure 5. Carbon footprint comparison Without
(0.27 tonnes – 385kwh of electricity at IoT for summer and winter
0.708KgCO​2​/kWh, 0.03 tonnes – 21 liters of LPG)

C. Carbon Footprint in winter of the house

(6 people without IOT (per month)
● Electrical Appliances – 200kwh
● LPG – 28 liters

Total House footprint – 0.18 tonnes of CO​2

(0.14 tonnes – 200kwh of electricity at

0.708KgCO​2​/kWh, 0.04 tonnes – 28 liters of LPG) 

 Figure 6. Carbon footprint comparison With

IoT for summer and winter
D. Carbon Footprint in winter of the house
(6 people) with IoT (per month)
● Electrical Appliances – 154kwh
● LPG – 21 liters

Total House footprint – 0.14 tonnes of CO​2

(0.11 tonnes – 154kwh of electricity at

0.708KgCO​2​/kWh, 0.03 tonnes – 21 liters of LPG) 

Figure 7. Carbon footprint comparison with and

VI. RESULTS without IoT for summer



The comparison graphs of Carbon footprint with
and without IoT implantation in both summer and
winter for Electrical appliances and LPG usage is

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Figure 8. Carbon footprint comparison with and
without IoT for winter
VII. CONCLUSION
From the above research study it is concluded that
the IoT is one of thepromisingtechnologieswhich
can help reduce the carbon footprint drastically. It
should be noted that the tests carried out were on
domestic subjects. But, there are many other
components like automobiles, agriculture, fire etc,
which contribute to carbon footprint.
 quality monitoring, Journal of integrated circuit
With better quality sensors and a much more
advanced web network, the difference could be
more than 22%andwemightincreasetheaccuracy
by considering other contributing factors to our
calculations as well. Further,itisobservedthatthe
application of a data-driven smart thermostat with
the usage of AI and ML, a hybrid technology,will
help optimize this process.
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