Urban energy infrastructures are increasingly called upon to play a dual role: ensuring energy efficiency while simultaneously supporting environmental monitoring, climate adaptation, and inclusive governance. However, most smart city implementations continue to treat public lighting systems as isolated technological upgrades, rather than as systemic infrastructures capable of enabling participatory environmental intelligence. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a novel cybernetic framing of smart public lighting as a strategic AIoT-enabled infrastructure for environmental and climate justice within smart cities. The study responds to the need for integrated, scalable, and governance-oriented approaches that connect energy efficiency, environmental risk management, and open data-driven participation in the context of sustainable urban transitions.
The proposed approach introduces an AIoT-based cybernetic framework grounded in the Viable System Model (VSM) to reconceptualize smart public lighting networks as viable socio-technical systems. Methodologically, the framework integrates distributed environmental sensing embedded in public lighting infrastructure with AIoT data pipelines, edge–cloud processing, and open data platforms. The VSM is employed as an organizing meta-framework to structure system viability across five functional domains: System 1 (operational environmental sensing and energy-efficient lighting control), System 2 (coordination and data harmonization across distributed nodes), System 3 (operational control, performance monitoring, and resource optimization), System 4 (environmental intelligence, risk anticipation, and adaptive planning), and System 5 (policy, governance, and alignment with environmental justice objectives). This cybernetic architecture enables continuous feedback loops between energy infrastructure performance, environmental data production, and participatory governance mechanisms, operationalizing open science principles within urban management.
The results are presented at a conceptual and methodological level, demonstrating how the proposed framework advances beyond conventional smart lighting and urban monitoring paradigms. The framework articulates smart public lighting as a dual energy–environmental infrastructure capable of simultaneously improving energy efficiency, expanding high-resolution environmental monitoring, and enabling data-driven participation by local stakeholders. By embedding AIoT sensors within existing lighting assets, the model reduces marginal energy and infrastructure costs while increasing spatial coverage and temporal resolution of environmental data. The integration of open data and interoperable architectures supports transparency, accountability, and community engagement, transforming environmental monitoring from a purely technical function into a governance instrument. From a cybernetic perspective, the explicit mapping of VSM functions clarifies roles, feedback mechanisms, and decision pathways, strengthening system resilience and adaptive capacity in the face of environmental and climatic uncertainty.
The paper concludes that AIoT-driven smart public lighting, when designed as a cybernetic infrastructure, constitutes a powerful lever for smart cities seeking to align energy transition goals with environmental and climate justice. The proposed framework contributes theoretically by extending cybernetic governance models into the domain of urban energy infrastructure, and methodologically by offering a transferable blueprint for participatory, data-driven environmental management. As an initial case of application, the framework is contextualized through the Hub Ambiental del Caribe as an early methodological reference in the Caribbean region of Colombia, illustrating its relevance for cities facing environmental vulnerability and governance challenges. The approach provides a robust foundation for future empirical validation and positions smart public lighting networks as key enablers of sustainable, just, and resilient urban transitions.
