Introduction negative effects of water pollution, with Denmark helping other countries to improve their sanitation systems. When Copenhagen hosted the COP15 Climate Conference in 2009, the municipality set the target of making Copenhagen a In Copenhagen, the utility company HOFOR, owned by the leading example of a smart and sustainable city. One ambitious municipality, manages water across the city, delivering objective within this overall goal was for the city to become the more than fifty million cubic meters of water to customers first carbon-neutral city by 2025. every year (International Water Agency Website, 2020). Its prevention-based model has allowed the city to optimize water Ten years later, Copenhagen is known worldwide for, among management operations: groundwater would only require other things, the four hundred kilometers of cycle paths that simple treatment such as filtration, monitored by warning 35 percent of its population uses every day, and the city seems systems. Water pricing in Copenhagen is set annually by the to be moving in the right direction toward achieving the goals city government. In 2020, the price was equivalent to 5.17 euros it set in 2009, including its bid to become carbon neutral per cubic meter (International Water Agency Website, 2020).3 within the space of only sixteen years. In 2014, the city won the prestigious World Smart Cities award for its Copenhagen The great losses suffered by the city during the 2011 cloudburst Connecting project, confirming the city’s ambition to be a model (which gave rise to over ninety thousand insurance claims) sustainable city (Copenhagen Lab Website, 2020). had an impact on the water tariff, which is now being used to finance implementation of the Cloudburst Management Plan for Our chapter seeks to understand how Copenhagen hasCopenhagen City. The implementation time frame for that plan evolved since it set its ambitious goals in 2009. We do so by is between twenty and thirty years. The billion dollars of damage analyzing the many different smart city concepts that the city (710 to 720 million euros) caused by the cloudburst that struck has embraced in areas such as energy, mobility, and citizen Copenhagen in 2011 had a profound impact on the thinking participation. By compiling information on Copenhagen’s of many of Copenhagen’s stakeholders, and many initiatives smart city initiatives in this chapter, we hope to offer a general were implemented in the city in response to the devastation. overview that will allow readers to obtain a sense of the different Under Danish legislation, all properties connected to the public challenges, objectives, and interconnections that have arisen as water supply must have water meters installed. The City of Copenhagen has sought to turn itself into a leading smart city. Copenhagen has agreed that water supply companies must The range of sources used throughout the document, which collectively allocate three hundred thousand euros annually to includes the City Council’s official documents and programs, supporting the establishment of individual water meters and as well as press articles and academic studies, has allowed water-saving systems (International Water Agency Website, us to adopt a neutral approach to our object of focus, through 2020). As a result of this drive to implement individual water which we compare the city’s ambitions and how well they have meters, housing associations have achieved water consumption been realized. savings of up to 20 percent. 1. Health 1.1.1 Water management after the 2011 cloudburst The plan created after the cloudburst event of 2011, which 1.1 Basic sanitation elicited ninety thousand insurance claims, is based on an efficient adaption of the city that involves all relevant actors In 2016, Denmark had a poverty rate of 0.2 percent (Macrotrends and citizens (The City of Copenhagen Cloudburst Management website, 2020). Water became a cultural priority here back in Plan, 2012). The specifics of the plan include: the 1970s. Copenhagen’s mayor for technical and environmental • Redesigning urban spaces to reduce flood risks; affairs states that the city’s drinking water is cleaner than • Preserving biodiversity and fighting against the use of bottled water (Dana Raidt, 2015). pesticides in public areas; • Involving citizens by educating them about storm water Denmark takes a “prevention vs. treatment” approach to water management and its benefits. treatment—that is, preventing contamination in the first place is the main goal (Ministry of Environment and Food in Denmark, A new regulation on financing cloudburst management was Environmental agency website, 2020). Its actions in this area adopted in spring 2014 by the Danish Parliament to limit have also helped low-income communities to deal with the the consequences of extreme storm events. It stated that (3) In 2014, after the last cloudburst, the water tariff increased. The increase was compared to a potential rise in insurance costs for protecting buildings, property and infrastructure. 116 Quélin and Smadja | HEC PARIS | SMART CITIES | The sustainable program of six leading cities | 2021