[Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on BusinessGreen, and is reprinted with permission.]

The first thing to say about European startup Living PlanIT is that it is ambitious.

Not only is it planning to build the world's greenest city from scratch at a site in northern Portugal, it wants to establish its PlanIT Valley development as both a genuine European alternative to Silicon Valley and a working template for a new generation of low carbon cities -- ones that combine real environmental sustainability with a quality of life almost unrecognizable from the crowded, smog-drenched reality.

The company's plans for a brand new city jam-packed with bleeding-edge green technologies and capable of housing 225,000 people, while producing "negligible" greenhouse gas emissions, leads to the raising of skeptical eyebrows at the best of times.

But at a time when it is all the harder for the company to raise the $10bn it estimates will be required, due to the global financial crisis, you could be forgiven for thinking that Living PlanIT's plans sound more like an admirable thought experiment than a viable construction project.

It is an impression not helped by the company's penchant for the kind of marketing blather that, in order to understand it, requires a degree in PR. For example, the company's claim that its "design and manufacturing platforms enable the convergence of computing, network and sensing technologies with the fabric of buildings and places, demonstrated at urban scale in the development and operations of PlanIT Valley," does not really explain what it does.

But listening to chief executive Steve Lewis outline his plans for the company and it becomes possible to not just suspend your disbelief, but also start to think that the company might just deliver on its absurdly ambitious promise.

Lewis's rationale for the company is both convincing and admirably simple. He argues the construction industry remains the last great bastion of the economy to resist the IT revolution that has enhanced efficiencies across every other industry -- and that resistance cannot last forever.

Living PlanIT plans to integrate IT into the fabric of the city, installing hundreds of thousands of sensors that allow an urban operating system to deliver intelligent buildings that are constantly optimized to enhance comfort, productivity and environmental sustainability. Meanwhile, the latest renewable energy technologies and green building techniques will allow the city to operate with a virtually non-existent carbon footprint.

Of course, such proposals are not new. The IT industry has long lamented the way in which the construction sector has resisted its charms. Most previous attempts to win over city developers have floundered over concerns about the cost of new technology and fears that "it all sounds a bit Minority Report".

So what makes PlanIT Valley different?

First up, the company has some pretty serious clout, both in terms of the team it has assembled and the financial backing it has already secured.

Lewis and much of the senior management team have served as senior execs at Microsoft and a host of other blue chip firms and are imbued with the technology sector's 'anything is possible' ethos. In addition, Lewis claims the company has already invested $300m in amassing its team of engineers and developing its technology portfolio, and that's before the company has really got out of stealth mode. Add in today's endorsement from Cisco and the project is establishing a degree of credibility that comfortably outstrips some other green city projects.

More importantly, almost all the technologies the company is planning to deploy in PlanIT Valley are technically viable. Intelligent buildings that know to turn the air con up before you even realize you are hot may sound a bit sci-fi, but we increasingly live in a sci-fi age. You do not need to invent anything new to develop a zero-carbon city, you just have to pull all the right green technologies together in the right place.

Should Living PlanIT achieve this integration it will hopefully be able to prove the final part of Lewis's thesis. Namely, that the cost concerns surrounding green developments are ill-founded. Efficiency gains delivered by intelligent infrastructure and a more automated approach to construction more than negate any increase in upfront costs.

And if it can win the economic argument, the scale of the opportunity is staggering. As Lewis points out, projected population growth means the world has to deliver between 9,500 and 10,000 new cities over the next 40 years to house everyone. There is no chance of avoiding dangerous levels of climate change unless this expansion is delivered in an environmentally-sustainable manner. That is quite a business opportunity for the company that can deliver the answer.

Whether that company turns out to be PlanIT remains to be seen, but one thing is certain, no one will be able to say it lacked ambition.

_{Solar panels photo CC-licensed by Flickr user Chandra Marsono.}