Green inspiration from Madrid: Taking sustainable action, one step at a time.

Privileged to say I am in Madrid right now and trying to combine 2 things. Main reason is to join my daughter, helping out with some ‘typical’ Spanish paperwork processes and to get her to know the city. She is starting her internship at one of the great hotels out there in Madrid as part of her Hotel Management School Maastricht education (yeah, yeah, cliché to say kids are growing up and you are a proud dad, but sorry, it is the truth!)

The second reason is to get some inspiration out of Madrid looking at their efforts into sustainability and ESG execution. I must say, it’s really great to see how the Comunidad de Madrid and their partners changed the city in the last few years.

The things that really stood out for me:

• Green city. Over 55% of the city's streets are tree-lined and with almost 300,000 trees contributing to improving Madrid's air quality and making it the world's second-leafiest city in terms of tree-lined streets, preceded only by Tokyo.
• El Bosque Metropolitano - a 75km-long forest bel. It will allow almost half a million new trees to be planted, will improve air quality, decrease desertification and flood risks, support biodiversity, and act as a thermal regulator for the city as it will mitigate Madrid’s urban heat island. El Bosque Metropolitano is a long-term city project that will take about 12 years to complete. When this forest reaches maturity, it will absorb 170,000 tons of CO2.
• Keep the subway clean. The Community of Madrid plans to install 259 new clean points in 71 stations on Metro lines 3, 4, 8 and 11, tripling the number at the end of 2022, when it had 21. Each of these posts consists of three litter bins, so that by the beginning of 2024 almost 800 bins will have been installed on the Madrid underground.
• Electric fleet. The City Council's efforts, together with EMT, the Municipal Transport Company of Madrid, have made it possible to ensure that 100% of Madrid’s bus fleet is green and in compliance with the EU's?Clean Vehicles Directive. Also Madrid has a monthly fee of 8 euros especially for young adults to promote public transportation.
• Sustainable mobility. The updated BiciMAD consists out of a total of more than?7,500 fully electric bikes, and 611 stations spread throughout the 21 districts of the city. This expansion and renovation of BiciMAD Madrid aim to consolidate the city as a?reference capital in sustainable mobility.
• Diversity in traffic. Madrid introduced some time ago already pedestrian traffic lights depicting women and same-sex couples. Madrid strongly believes that traffic lights are intended to take care of citizens, and they had to reflect the city’s diversity.
• Social bonding. The culture of Spain is known for good food and sharing great moments together with friends and family. Adding a playground at squares where people come together create more beautiful family moments and social bonding.

While reading the very hands-on and useful book “Duurzame ambitie’ by Marnix Kluiters and Mark Siegenbeek van Heukelom at the same time, I gave myself a little exercise:

"What stands out in Madrid and how can you use this as an inspiration to translate it into small sustainable actions when being a leader in a company?"

There is a lot to come up with, big and small actions, but these few low-hanging-fruit things came to my mind as small steps:

·????? What initiatives are there already to become greener? Are you for example helping to plant more trees to compensate your companies' gas emission as a first step? Going down on business flights?

·????? Is your mobility fleet already in transformation to electric and/or are you planning to do that with clear targets in mind?

·????? Are you promoting to use the bike more often? Offering bike lease plans for employees and do bike tours with employees and families to stay healthy and enjoy nature all together?

·????? Are you separating garbage enough at the company and are you triggering employees to do it at home as well? Are you reusing materials to create new products? Would you like to work with sustainable partners who can help you achieving that?

·????? How is your offering of work-life balance for employees? Are you taking care of them enough to keep your people happy and fit for now and for the longer term?

·????? Are you inspiring your teams in your company around sustainable actions? And what actions are done internally to make sure everyone can share great ideas around sustainability and ESG and reward them for winning actions?

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It makes me really happy to see a lot a good things happening in Madrid, making them one of the world’s greenest capitals. And for sure there is still so much to do, but it starts with taking clear actions and do it. I hope it’s an inspiration for everyone (city, company and individual person) to make some steps yourself!