Sequester and store carbon

After 2011, in the face of crisis and austerity hardship and the collapse of the central public welfare system, many municipalities assumed the role of enhancing food production through urban allotment gardens. In Ag. Dimitrios (AD), the idea emerged from a couple of newly elected representatives one of whom was part of an agriculture cooperative outside of Athens. A mixture of social and environmental goals were set (to change the microclimate, to change people's habits, to reintroduce contact with nature in the city, to be environment-friendly through good practices, and to create an educational ground for children). [1]

Green roofs were created on vehicles in the Spanish cities of Barcelona, Girona, Córdoba, Valencia. This initiative is based on the project of Marc Grañén, who developed PhytoKinetic a project for the development of moving gardens. (ref 1) The city of Palma de Mallorca was also considering its introduction as a measure of sustainability. (ref 1) The intervention, however, remained in the pilot stage (ref 1 and 4).

The Sea's Corridor is a project that created green spaces with good quality that act as green belts of the city while serving as a support for the sustainable and not motorized means of transport. It was part of a project Plan called "Plan E" of the Municipality of Palma (Ref 1). The project was completed and in 2020 there are plans to do some renovations. They want to join the Sea's Corridor to Platja de Palma, as well as create new green spaces with a wider link with the ocean (Ref 5).

As part of World Tree day celebrated on March 21, 2017 the Sintra Service for Protection of the Nature and the Environment (SEPNA) as well as the Sintra Branch Segura School carried out several education workshops for school children to inform about the importance of tress for our natural environment and carried out afforestation and reforestation actions inside the green spaces of Sintra. (1)

As part of a larger project, this project aimed at creating a vertical garden in the Levante Square, in the Deustro neighborhood, the city of Bilbao. The intervention was initiated by the Bilbao's municipality in 2016 and aimed at creating a green area that was a bit unconventional and artistic at the same time. The landscape design incorporates local elements such as the trawlers, the cliffs of the Cantabrian coast and the local architecture, integrating nature and tradition (Ref 1).

The Urban Forest project represents an increase of urban trees in the city. There will be two phases of this project. In the first, it consists of a transformation of an eye-sore and abandoned space, around previous Canodrome, into a large urban forest (Ref 1, 9). The second one will be located in the land of the velodrome of Es Tirador. This projec has been delaid due to unforeseen costs (Ref 10).

The municipality aimed to establish a zone in Murcia that worked as a "green lung" for the city while making it its engine for economic, social and cultural development (Ref 2). For this, the municipality planned and implemented the project of "Integrated Alcantarilla Parks". It includes several parks, with the priority of creating one in the surroundings of the Ethnological Orchards Murcia's Museum (Ref 1). The project is called integrated as it is based on the integral values of sustainability where the environment, the economic development and the socio-cultural needs are compatible (Ref 2). For this, there will be sustainable architecture, recovery of the natural environment, as well as incorporating the historical heritage in the public green areas of a specific zone (Ref 3). There are many parks that are part of this project, the last one was the Ibarra de Murcia Park in 2020 (Ref 7 and 8).

The Lolli-Malaspina area of the central station intervention aims to replace the current urban space and to replace it with a system that can complete and integrate the existing one, and generate a new centrality, transforming the current laceration into an urban seam. There are new gardens outside the central station, which link the different areas of the railway, and it has been implemented because the area of the central station is a strategical node for the city which has to be reinforced with new green areas. (Ref.1.)

On an office building, one of the largest green walls of Belgium was created (50.000 plants) that improves air quality, reduces heat stress, and improves biodiversity. The green wall also isolates the building, resulting in less energy use (Ref. 1-3). The wall consists of a variety of native plants and is irrigated with water collected on the roof of the building (Ref. 1, 2).

The Faktory project claims to be the first European smart greenhouse, located in the Science Park of Liege. The building serves as a Private Incubator of young start-ups focusing on tech, but it has sustainability goals, too; it is a showcase of urban agriculture, there is biodiversity integration, and the plants produced in the building contribute to supplying the cafeteria (Ref. 1).