Operationalizing the Metaverse for Urban Sustainability: Evidence From an Expert Panel and the Seoul Metaverse City Case Study

Abstract

Smart cities and urban digital twins have fostered the emergence of immersive environments, such as the metaverse. While contemporary scholarlship has increasingly examined the integration of the metaverse within smart city infrastructures, the critical nexus between urban sustainability and the metaverse remains largely under-­ researched. This study seeks to develop a framework to operationalize the metaverse towards sustainable urban development. A mixed qualitative methodology was pro- posed by combining an in-­ depth literature review covering 75 articles and the judgements of 7 experts. After completing a double two-­ round Delphi technique, a catalog of 6 actions involving 8 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Targets was developed to be applied to Seoul Metaverse City. The findings suggest a limited contribution on urban sustainability, but the study broadened the scope for the use of the metaverse over initiatives to improve urban resilience, governance and policymaking, citizen services, cultural offerings, and educational horizons through more sophisticated metaverse platforms.