Public Infrastructure for Urban Digital Transformation and Social Innovation: The Transition Toward a Zero-Waste City in Florianópolis, Brazil

Contemporary urban governance faces structural obsolescence in municipal solid waste management, particularly in the Global South. This study analyzes the implementation of the Zero Waste Cities Platform, a digital public infrastructure (DPI) designed to facilitate the transition from linear to circular economies, within the context of the first public pro-curement for innovation in Florianópolis, Brazil. Using an embedded case study and a mixed-methods approach, including a questionnaire administered to 125 citizens, the re-search evaluates the platform through four analytical lenses: institutional, political, terri-torial, and ecological. The implementation results demonstrate a 31% reduction in collec-tion route time and a 17% decrease in operational costs. Furthermore, cluster analysis of the questionnaire responses citizen a high latent potential for digital engagement, with 94% of respondents expressing willingness to use applications integrated into the nation-al governmental platform (Gov.br) to participate in recycling initiatives. The study con-cludes that “citizen digitalization,” when anchored in open DPIs and social innovation, acts as a systemic transition vector that reconfigures the roles of the state, cooperatives, and citizens. These findings provide empirically grounded insights for local governments seeking to combine emerging technologies, such as IoT and data intelligence, with demo-cratic experimentalism to accelerate ecological transitions and urban sustainability.