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The Cathedral city of Peterborough has joined forces with IBM to create an online Sustainability City Visualisation project that will allow residents to monitor in real time its environmental performance.

The first phase will focus on energy and water data, but work is already underway to move transport and waste related information on to the platform. Other environmental data will follow.

Visitors will be able to log onto the website and access the necessary information to make more informed decisions about resource usage.

It is the first time that utilities, government agencies and local businesses will be able to share information for a more comprehensive view of a city's ecosystem.

Peterborough was made one of the four UK Environmental Cities by the Department of the Environment in 1985, and is set to become one of a cluster of IBM 'Smarter Cities' being developed around the world.

It is hoped that having a greater understanding of the sustainability challenges of Peterborough will enable the city to fulfil its ambitions to add 20,000 jobs, 25,000 homes and 40,000 residents by 2021.

Amy Savage, senior engineer at Royal Haskoning, an independent engineering and environmental consultancy, which is helping with the project, said: 'The aim of the project is to provide Peterborough with a big picture overview of its current sustainability performance coupled with the right level of detail to identify how organisations and individuals could better work together and where the city can best prioritise investment.'

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