Private sector/corporate actor/company

In 2013, architecture firm BIG's design was chosen for a proposed Museum of the Human Body in Montpellier (Ref. 1). The plan was "An ambitious scenographic project resulting from a simple and clear spatial design. The alliance of its architectural, environmental, and functional qualities". "The gentle slopes of its roofs transform into a landscape intertwining vegetable and mineral terraces that provide direct access to pedestrians on the urban sidewalk and the park" (Ref. 2). It would have involved a "park of eight hectares" (Ref. 12, page 4). The project has not yet become a reality (as of August 2, 2020).

The 53 square meters large green wall can be found in an office building in the center of Budapest. (Reference 9) It helps to balance the humidity indoors, cleans the air and provides a comfortable work environment. The project includes rainwater collection for the irrigation of the green wall. (Reference 6) The building itself was the first one in Central-Eastern Europe to gain the double environmental certification of BREEAM Very Good and LEED Gold. (Reference 9) The focus of the NBS are the indoor green walls, but the building itself also features vegetation on multiple terraces and sun collectors. (Reference 10)

Sofielund invests in a sustainable area. Carpool/joint recycling centre were some of the proposals discussed when property owners, Malmö city and some experts discussed how Sofielund could become more sustainable in the future. The idea is that the environmental days in Malmö (e.g. a workshop) will lead to an action plan to make Sofielund greener. Property owners Sofielund has been at the forefront of a local sustainability work that can be a model for the rest of the country. In February 2017, a memorandum of understanding was signed about concrete efforts to strengthen the Sofielund area (Ref. 1, 2). There is a strong political support for the work that is being done in Sofielund and the BID concept is now upscaled to a sixth project area called Case Sofielund. (Ref. 6).

With its parking areas, ponds, the Lutter stream, playground facilities, walking and jogging paths, the green corridor of Bielefeld, called Luttergrünzug offers recreation opportunity to around 36, 000 people, living in the surrounding areas. As a link between the eastern city center and the district of Heepen, it also enables walking and cycling routes for commuting and shopping away from the busy streets of the city (7). However, the green corridor has been showing some structural and functional defects such as the silting up of the ponds, conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists and the increasing overgrowth of the green belt (8). In order to solve these problems, the renovation and redesign of the Green Corridor was proposed. The regeneration project addresses different needs and requirements of the municipality, namely providing the comfortable infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, and the increase of attractiveness of the neighbouring residential areas. In the planning process, special attention was paid to the improvement of the draining system and the reservoirs of the area that will protect the Belt from flooding. (8)

Two regeneration plans were developed with citizens' involvement and presented to the political committee. In 2017, the implementation of the "smaller" variant was voted for, which was already presented in the first citizens' workshop (1, 4).

CityTree is a four-meter high freestanding installation that is able to purify city air of harmful pollutants by using a special moss culture. (Reference 1) The local government of the 3rd district tested the technology under a 6 month trial from September 2017 to March 2018. The CityTree pilot project in Budapest was concluded, once the district administration decided not to continue the project further due to technical reasons. The irrigation system started to malfunction very early in the trial period, which caused the mosses to dry out and thus producing no quantifiable results. (Reference 9)

Developer company Helix plant systems built a facade for the restaurant at the Kasselbrink pavilion located at one of the central squares of Bielefeld. According to the preliminary expectations, the green facade will release 760 kg of oxygen per year and absorb 1070 kg of CO2, having a positive effect on the ecosystem, reduce the building's energy use for heating and cooling while also has aesthetic value by breaking the grey tone of the square (Ref. 1, 7, 8).

The BiodiverCity-project aimed to develop products, services and processes which support and enhance the city’s biodiversity and thus contribute to a vision of a green, attractive and healthy city (ref. 1). The project had been divided in three steps, step 1 involving preliminary studies and step 2 was practical work for two years. During step 2 different cases were identified to test new ways to e.g. increase the city's biodiversity. Step 3 included spreading to other sectors through seminars, education and exhibition activities. It also included the commercialization of green solutions (ref. 2).

The landscape in the Bielefeld agglomeration is exposed to stress from high settlement pressure and expansion of the infrastructure as well as in parts of intensive agricultural use (2). Since 2003, the Senne and neighbouring areas of the Teutoburg Forest which is protected under the Europe-wide protected area system, Natura 2000, become part of the funding program of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and become one of Agency's Large-scale nature conservation projects (NGP) (2, 5,13).
The project area lies in the transition area between two major German landscapes: the Senne as part of the north-west German lowlands and the Teutoburg Forest as part of the Central European low mountain range. The juxtaposition and close interlocking of numerous habitats such as species-rich beech forests, remains of acidic deciduous mixed forests, dry and humid heathland or natural sandy streams form the basis for diverse flora and fauna. Many of the numerous rare plant and animal species are rarely found in North Rhine-Westphalia outside of the NGP area (13).

The natural area complex Senne and Teutoburg Forest was declared by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) to be one of the 30 hotspots of biological diversity in Germany due to its nationwide uniqueness ( overview map ). These “Treasure Chests of Nature” (BfN 2015) distinguish regions in Germany that have a particularly high density and diversity of characteristic habitats, species and populations.(13)
The NGP was funded by the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of North Rhine-Westphalia with contribution of participating municipalities and the North Rhine-Westphalia Foundation (13). The Teutoburg Forest / Eggegebirge Nature Park is also sponsoring the project (12).

Agora Budapest is a large scale urban redevelopment project initiated by private investors. Besides implementing five high-quality office buildings, the investors aim at creating green public spaces the size of 7000 square metres in order to provide a healthy and vivid working environment. The green surface involves green roofs, parks and tree lines, all which will be irrigated using collected rainwater. The solar panels on the roofs of the buildings are also part of the sustainability plans of the investors. (Ref 1. and Ref 4.)

The city of Malmö works for a sustainable urban environment, e.g. through planning the city's new construction, working on existing buildings and at the same time striving to reduce the environmental impact. Västra Hamnen (Western harbour) is a new and ultra-modern district in Malmö. It is located on a former shipyard area right beside the sea, only less than a kilometer north-west of the medieval old town of Malmö (ref. 10). In the Western Harbour where land was available after the shipyard’s closure, high sustainability has been sought from the beginning. In dialogue with builders and other actors, Malmö City has developed guidelines for energy use, green structure, waste solutions and a healthy indoor environment. (Ref. 1)