It will be in Madrid Nuevo Norte where the largest zero-emission urban development in Europe will be built. For the first time, the capital of Spain will have a limited area that aims to be climate neutral. The Governing Board has agreed today to declare a Climate Action Demonstration Area (DEMO 360 Area) one of the four areas that comprise this great urban regeneration project: the Business Center, located at the northern end of the urban area, in the district from Chamartín, and to the south of the axis that will delimit Madrid Nuevo Norte.
The Madrid Nuevo Norte Business Center is ideal for the execution in the DEMO 360 Area of positive energy buildings, the development of reduced mobility in carbon, the integration of nature-based solutions and the transformation of the construction sector into a low emission sector. In addition, it will be configured as a new urban action where all the measures that are applied can be adopted before the area is inhabited. The measures that are positive can be replicated in other areas of the city.
The DEMO 360 Area will have 100% zero-emission public transport, with a priority bus with a segregated platform, with exclusive bus lanes, a wide public access recharging network, zero-emission parking, 100% renewable energy, with transport stations less than 5 or 10 minutes, with a low-emission waste collection system, with the naturalization of spaces and the construction of buildings with materials that reduce emissions.
The new public transport infrastructures and parking management with low emission criteria allow us to estimate that only 20% of the trips generated and attracted by the Business Center will be made by private vehicle, which allows savings of more than 4,000 tons. of CO2 with respect to what would be estimated in a development with a more traditional sustainable mobility strategy.
Pedestrian and cyclist mobility
To promote pedestrian mobility, the urbanization project will design public roads with wide sidewalks, creating spaces for stays, and pedestrian itineraries with a maximum slope of 5% will be established, whenever possible.
The urbanization project will have a segregated bike lane infrastructure to promote cyclist mobility. The necessary space will be reserved for parking bicycles near the bus, Metro and Cercanías stops. In all residential and tertiary buildings and public parcels there will be space reserved for covered parking and equipped with the optimal conditions for its care and custody.
The planning instruments in Madrid Nuevo Norte had already included more demanding requirements for energy efficiency and reduction of polluting emissions than those that would have other actions, so that there is a very favorable context to increase the ambition represented by the creation of this demonstration area .
The measures contemplated in the Action Plan will allow the reduction of:
- 100% of the emissions linked to the use of buildings.
- 100% of the emissions linked to public lighting.
- 49% of the emissions linked to the water supply.
- 3% of emissions linked to wastewater treatment.
- 57% of the emissions linked to transport.
- A total reduction of 68% of emissions compared to the starting situation of the specific urban regulations of Madrid Nuevo Norte.
- The planned vegetation will allow the capture of more than 225 tons of CO2 each year.
To monitor and coordinate the Action Plan, a Monitoring Commission for climate neutrality will be created, a collegiate body with representatives of different municipal Government Areas, the Chamartín District Municipal Board and the Business Center Compensation Board Chamartín, and to which other relevant organizations and entities will be invited to participate.
The origin of the DEMO 360 Area
Madrid was selected last April as a city that is part of the European Mission for smart and climate-neutral cities, one of the components that make up the new European Framework Program for Research and Innovation “Horizon Europe” for the period 2021-2027. Its objective is to support, promote and show the transformation of one hundred European cities towards climate neutrality to turn them into centers of experimentation and innovation for all the others.
Madrid’s proposal for its inclusion within the 100 cities that are part of the European Mission contemplated the Climate Action Demonstration Area (DEMO 360 Area), and whose creation was foreseen in the Air Quality and Sustainability Ordinance to accelerate decarbonization .
Within the framework of the Madrid 360 Environmental Sustainability Strategy, the City Council mentation developed an action plan that includes it in the group of cities in Europe with the greatest ambition to advance in the fight against climate change. The objective included in the Roadmap towards climate neutrality, presented by the mayor in March 2021, marks a decrease in CO2 levels in the city of Madrid by 2030 ten points above what was established by the European Union in 2020 , that is, it is intended to reduce Greenhouse Gases (GHG) by 65% for that year.
