Climate change is causing extreme temperatures, and adapting our habits to slow the rise in temperatures has become an urgent problem. The Healthy Cities 2023 project seeks to implement new healthy lifestyles and build healthier and more sustainable cities for all. One of the initiatives is to manage to walk 6,000 steps a day for two months and regenerate green spaces in urban environments, with the aim of planting a tree for each person who meets the goal in the Madrid Metropolitan Forest and the Zaragozanos Forest.
The second part of the challenge is to leave the car at home at least one day a week. The event, financed by the Spanish Heart Foundation, the Norman Foster Foundation, the Spanish Olympic and Paralympic Committees, and the Real Madrid Club, was attended by the Third Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, who highlighted the importance of sport and the creation of good practices as determining factors in people’s lives.
The event featured two panels of experts. The first discussed cities as part of the challenge and the solution and highlighted the consequences of pollution on people’s health. The biologist and scientific communicator Odile Rodriguez de la Fuente has highlighted that humanity is “in the sixth great mass extinction.” The second panel of experts discussed how companies can be part of the solution, and representatives from companies such as Amazon, Accenture, Orange, GKS, and Nationale-Nederlanden spoke about the programs they implement for their employees to choose sustainable transport options, programs for garbage collection, or the creation of friendly environments with the environment.
In conclusion, the Healthy Cities 2023 project seeks to promote changes in the daily habits of people and companies to build healthier and more sustainable cities. Small individual changes can have a big impact on the regeneration of green spaces and the reduction of pollution, and each small change is important to take care of our environment and people.