Madrid

Spain

Mission city Pilot city
Spain National Platform
Madrid Mission City Label
Population 3.5M
City Area 105.4 km²
City active since June 2022

Madrid has shown its commitment and involvement in international initiatives of collaboration and leadership of cities in the fight against Climate Change since the first meetings that gave rise to the creation of C40 network,in October 2005 in London, developing since then and continuously developing activity in the prevention and fight against climate change.

 

It is worth mentioning some milestones such as the approval by the Municipal Plenary of the adhesion to the Covenant of Mayors (Covenant of Mayors2 ), in November 2008, obliging it to exceed the target set by the European Union (EU) to reduce GHG emissions by 20% by 2020. Subsequently, in July 2014, the Plenary agreed to approve the adhesion of Madrid City Council to the Mayors Adapt initiative (Mayors Adapt3 ).

 

In September 2014, the Compact of Mayors initiative4 was presented at the United Nations Climate Summit, to which the city of Madrid adhered, with the aim of committing cities to reduce their GHG emissions, making public their plans and objectives for mitigation and adaptation to climate change, as well as their annual monitoring, using a common methodology for the inventory of emissions at the urban scale. Subsequently, in 2018, Madrid City Council adheres to the 'Deadline 20205 ' commitment promoted by the Cities Climate Change Leadership Network - C40, by which it commits to develop an action plan.

Key Learnings

The Impact of Institutional Innovation on a Public Tender: The Case of Madrid Metropolitan Forest

Authors: Sara Romero-Muñoz, Manuel Alméstar ,Teresa Sánchez-Chaparro and Víctor Muñoz Sanz. Published/Created by: MDPI This article belongs to the Special Issue Planning Sustainable Cities through Nature-Based Solutions Category: Land Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/land12061179 The introduction of forests in cities has been an observable trend in recent years, with planned forest management projects proliferating around the world. The fact that many urban forests in the public space are traditionally managed by top-down bureaucratic procedures and guided by expert knowledge raises questions about whether green areas should follow the same management approach as other urban infrastructures, such as mobility infrastructures, or whether they should explore a collaborative approach designed to engage diverse stakeholders. This article examines the challenges of innovating in urban forests, changing the management rules that may limit participatory and deliberative processes to support decision-making. In particular, we analyzed how introducing a co-creation stage impacted the traditional competitive public tender procedure in the Madrid Metropolitan Forest project, using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. Results showed that the costs and benefits of innovation differ among involved actors, generating unintended deterrent effects for experimentation. To mitigate these decoupling effects, we suggest a strategic design of working rules and updating the shared incentive to move from a competitive and transactional logic to a more collaborative and co-creative form of connection. Keywords: urban forest management; institutional analysis; IAD framework; case study method; ethnographic fieldwork analysis; innovation; cities

Supporting municipalities to develop collaboration capability to facilitate urban transitions and sustainability: Role of transition intermediaries in Madrid

Authors: Miguel Soberón, Irene Ezquerra-Lázaro, Teresa Sánchez-Chaparro, Jaime Moreno-Serna , Gabriella Dóci Published/Created by: Elsevier   |  Journal of Cleaner Production Get rights and content Under a Creative Commons license Category: Sustainability Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.138964 Transition management literature acknowledges that urban transitions are influenced by the interplay between a wide variety of actors operating under network governance. This means that municipalities must move from the traditional roles of commanders or implementers to those of initiators and facilitators of transition initiatives involving multiple actors and sectors. However, the structural and cultural challenges in municipalities hinder their ability to collaborate in network environments. Through a case study, this study analyses the role of transition intermediaries as expert organizations in building collaborations that support municipalities in developing their relational collaboration potential. The results show that besides building successful collaborations, intermediation work should focus on creating inter-organizational spaces where municipalities can learn how to collaborate relationally. However, transition intermediaries do not replace municipalities in their facilitation role in the transition but support them until they are ready to assume that role. Highlights Inter-organizational learning spaces support the building of collaboration capability. Intermediation builds conditions for learning about collaboration while collaborating. Systematic alignment of interorganizational and intraorganizational spaces is crucial. Intermediaries do not replace the municipality as facilitator of network governance. Collaboration capability is perceived to be strongly linked to trust.

(Re)designing the Rules: Collaborative Planning and Institutional Innovation in Schoolyard Transformations in Madrid

Authors:  Manuel Alméstar Sara Romero-Muñoz Published/Created by: MDPI This article belongs to the Special Issue Participatory Land Planning: Theory, Methods, and Case Studies) Category: Land Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/land14061174 Climate adaptation in urban environments is often constrained by rigid institutional rules and fragmented governance, which limit inclusive and context-specific planning of public spaces such as schoolyards. This study addresses this challenge by examining how collaborative planning can transform schoolyards, from asphalt-dominated, monofunctional spaces into green, climate-resilient community assets. The research employed the Institutional Analysis and Development framework within a qualitative case study design. Two public schools in the San Cristóbal de los Ángeles neighbourhood of Madrid served as case studies, with data collected through document analysis, participant observation, and interviews with municipal officials, urban planners, educators, and community members. Results indicate that the collaborative planning process reshaped rules in use, expanded the network of actors, and transformed decision-making processes. Existing rules were flexibly reinterpreted to allow new uses of space. Children, teachers, and residents became co-producers of the public space, expanding the governance network, where new deliberative practices emerged that improved coordination across people and organisations. These institutional changes occurred without formal regulatory reform, but with the reinterpretation of the game’s rules by each organisation. Thus, schoolyards can serve as laboratories for institutional innovation and participatory climate adaptation, demonstrating how urban experiments have the potential to catalyse not only physical transformations but also transformations in urban management. Keywords: institutional analysis development; school playgrounds; climate adaptation; collaborative planning; urban experimentation; institutional innovation

Clean Cities ClimAccelerator

Clean Cities ClimAcclerator is a 9-month accelerator program targeting startups that help cities achieve climate neutrality, particularly through the use and commercialisation of clean technology. The program is focused on system-level innovations and is demand-led, matching startups in an early phase with challenge-owners.
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External projects

City involvement in related European initiatives