The world is increasingly urbanised, and in just a few decades it will be even more so. Cities only make up a tenth of the world’s land, yet today more than 55% of the total population (7,800 million people) live in them. By 2050 this percentage will have reached 70% of the world’s population, estimated at 10,000 million. These are the figures handled by UN-Habitat, the United Nations programme devoted to housing and sustainable urban development, i.e. to ensuring that human settlements are adequate and decent for people and that they respect the environment.

The process of urbanisation –with all its social, economic and environmental repercussions– is happening on a global scale, at an increasingly fast pace and spontaneously, giving rise to urban settlements that lack the minimum infrastructure and services to ensure the quality of life and development of their inhabitants. Adequate planning of both urban growth and transport networks –especially in large metropolitan areas– is one of the keys to making cities into habitable environments that are sustainable, safe, fair and friendly for their inhabitants.

We cannot talk of city planning from one sole point of view or one sole model: we have to consider what makes each urban area unique in order to offer effective solutions that respond to specific problems.

For this, we require political will, commitment from all actors (state, private and civilian), as well as availability of economic and financial resources, which will enable policies and actions to be agreed to achieve a sustainable development model.

In the current context of rapid urbanisation, planning has new challenges to confront, such as slowing down climate change, backing sustainability and fighting against growing social inequality. For this, it is necessary to ensure universal access to basic services such as transport, water, sanitation, energy, communications and equipment.

A highly organised urban model with sufficient equipment and public spaces, affordable housing and sustainable mobility offers people more opportunities of employment and training as well as access to essential services like healthcare and education, among others, thus minimising urban imbalances and inequality.

The United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Habitat III, held in Quito, Ecuador, from 17–20 October 2016, brought together over 35,000 participants and covered all these topics through numerous conferences and events in which the various agents debated and presented their proposals to tackle the urban problems of the future. Among its main conclusions were the pursuit of social inclusion and eradication of poverty, sustainable and inclusive urban prosperity, and the assurance of a sustainable, resilient environmental balance through city planning.

The result of this meeting, translated into the so-called New Urban Agenda, gathered and took on the conclusions and commitments made by the international community in another two global forums of colossal importance for the planet’s development: the historic Paris Agreement on Climate (COP21) in December 2015, in which 195 countries signed the first binding global agreement to reduce global warming and slow down climate change, and the 17 goals of the UN’s Sustainable Development Agenda 2030.

In the first row, the Ecuadorian Minister for Urban Development and Housing, Ms Ángeles Duarte, the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Ban Ki-moon, and the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, former Barcelona mayor Mr Joan Clos.

Mobility for urban development: Ineco’s experience

Ineco, as part of the Spanish government’s delegation, took part in this global conference, presenting its planning, consultancy and transport engineering experience, a field in which we have decades of experience, as well as in other, more recently developed sectors linked to sustainable development, such as management of water resources and waste or smart cities.

The company has taken on an extensive range of engineering and consultancy work in these fields, to which it takes a comprehensive approach, marrying the interests of public administrations, businesses and society, and always including the environmental and social aspect to products through environmental assessments and socialisation projects.

As such, Ineco has successfully completed projects of all kinds in relation to urban and interurban mobility: from technical, economic, financial, legal and environmental impact feasibility studies (such as those performed on the Bi-oceanic Corridor for the governments of Bolivia and Peru) to drawing up projects and supervising infrastructure construction (conventional and high-speed railway lines and stations in Spain, Arabia, Turkey, India, etc.), airports, highways, access to ports and logistics centres, etc.

Among the studies carried out by Ineco to improve bus transport have been the reordering of buses in Algiers, the Bus Transport Strategic Plan in Oman, and the sustainable technology study for the buses of São Paulo. In metro systems, we have extensive experience in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, etc.) and in Medellín, São Paulo and Santiago de Chile. In terms of trams and light metros, also in Spain, we have worked on studies and projects in Madrid, Bilbao, Logroño, Zaragoza, León, Tenerife and Alicante, and on new schemes in Belgrade and Kuwait, as well as studies for tram renovation in Tallinn, in Latvia and in Pavlodar in Kazakhstan. Our suburban railway work includes the comprehensive projects between Caracas and the Valles del Tui in Venezuela, the studies for building a railway system in San José, Costa Rica, the Belgrade Light Metro and the Buenavista-Cuautitlán line in Mexico.

Comprehensive strategic, multimodal planning on a national, regional or local scale is another of the company’s specialities; for over four decades we have cooperated with the Spanish government to develop their national plans –PITVI (the Infrastructure, Transport and Housing Plan) is the most recent– but also with other governments such as those of Ecuador, Costa Rica, Oman and Algeria. Croatia and Malta, which are also planning their national strategies, commissioned a vital part of their plans to Ineco: that of preparing their national transport models (see pages 34-37) which, in Malta’s case, enabled Ineco to take part in the development of the National Transport Strategy, the National Master Plan, and finally the Strategic Environmental Assessment.

On a local level, it is worth mentioning the drawing up of Urban Mobility Plans, management tools to structure mobility policies towards methods for more sustainable movement in municipalities such as Hospitalet de Llobregat (151,000 inhabitants), Logroño (228,000) and A Coruña (244,000), where in addition to optimising public transport we also seek to strengthen non-motorised modes of transport, such as travel by foot or by bicycle.

For example, in Muscat, the capital of Oman, the starting point was one in which there was considerable presence of private vehicles and absence of railway networks, and it was concluded that a new, well-run network of buses would be the basis for the future public transport network. Ineco designed and presented a plan for the city in 2015 (starting with route proposals towards a new management model based on a single transport authority, among many other aspects) and subsequently the Bus Transport Strategic Plan for national public transport operations. The Omani government acquired a modern, state-of-the-art vehicle fleet to equip new urban and long-distance routes, and has put in place, among other means, a new legislative framework which is transforming the public transport system in the Sultanate (see IT57).

Towards the future of the city

Ineco has expanded its activity to planning other public services like water and waste:  as such, it prepared the Master Plan for Comprehensive Waste Management in the Metropolitan District of Quito (see IT58), based on a circular economy strategy with direct application methods and an effective legal framework; and studies for supervising the National Irrigation Plan in Ecuador with the aim of optimising water resource management, and it is elaborating Panama’s National Plan for the Collection and Treatment of Solid Waste, which will set out the means necessary to solve national waste management problems.

For Smart Cities the use of technology enables dynamic, real-time information to be obtained by installing sensors (the “internet of things”) and the vast quantity of data gathered via Big Data platforms to be processed. The Smart City model enables the management of multiple services to be optimised, from waste collection to traffic management, with the resulting benefit to the environment of reducing emissions, energy consumption and water, among other resources. It also enables citizen participation and administrative transparency to be increased. In this field, Ineco is working on the development of its platform CityNECO, with a pilot project for Granada City Council.

In short, the company, which presented some of its projects at Habitat (see News in this issue), believes in and works towards an urban model planned with an agreed comprehensive approach that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, with cleaner air, more space for pedestrians, greater abundance of water and biodiversity, and greater involvement of citizens, at the heart of a more polycentric, fluid urban structure in which information is available to assist people’s development and wellbeing.

The study, commissioned by the Metropolitan Environment Secretary of the Mayoralty of Quito and financed by the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), aims to meet the local needs to manage the approximately 2,000 tonnes a day of waste with a high level of organic material produced in the city. The Government and local authorities have taken various actions to ensure integrated waste management under the concept of ‘Zero Waste’, based on managing efficiently, effectively and innovatively the processes of generation, collection, use and final disposal.

With this programme, Quito wishes to transform the management of the waste generated by the more than 2.5 million inhabitants of its Metropolitan District (DMQ), which is the most populated area in the country. For this, the Environment Secretary has drawn up a strategy to reduce the total amount of waste currently taken to the city’s landfill site by 10% by 2025.  This landfill site, referred to as ‘El Inga’, is approaching its capacity limit and will soon no longer be able to hold all the waste produced, hence the need for an imminent solution to the problem.  Among the plans laid out are ‘containerisation’ of waste (a technique consisting in mechanisation and automation achieved using containers), construction of sorting and treatment plants, and the implementation of citizen-oriented awareness-raising campaigns on recycling and waste reduction.

The city government has entrusted Ineco with leading the drawing up of the master plan

To deliver these plans, the municipal government has commissioned Ineco to lead the Master Plan for Comprehensive Waste Management for Quito for 2016-2025, which it has carried out in collaboration with Tragsatec, also a Spanish company. The main aim of this environmental consultancy has been to set out a realistic, economically sustainable waste management system that is flexible in its organisation and supported by a new, stronger legislative framework. The plan is a comprehensive update of that developed in 2012. Some of its main targets are: to increase mechanised collection by 40%, to boost new alternative models for handling waste by 60% by 2019, and to reduce production of solid waste per capita by 5% by 2025, the target date set for the plan.

The document defines management models for different types of waste: domestic, special (including demolition and construction), dangerous (including sanitary) and industrial. It also includes an economic and financial analysis, a proposal for organisational remodelling and a proposal for the legislative framework that regulates the provision of public ‘containerisation’, transport, and waste treatment and disposal services, as well as the activity of private agents.

Diagnosis of the current situation

The city of Quito’s current waste management system is insufficient to cope with current demand, therefore it is necessary to expand services and facilities for proper waste collection and treatment. Such is the case of containers, mobile means or specific treatment centres. Regarding waste from construction and demolition (debris), citizens do not have enough disposal sites for debris arising from small projects or domestic refurbishment.

Additionally, the use of illegal tips persists, and current tips do not have sufficient capacity in the medium term.  To the practical aspects such as the lack of freight lorries and sorting containers we might add citizens’ lack of awareness of how to sort waste at the source: with the lack of a recycling culture, citizens and companies dispose of waste in unsuitable places or give it over to unauthorised agents.

Local authorities are aware that, in order to make the necessary means available to citizens, it is vital to establish in parallel a new organisational and legislative system that protects the most disadvantaged, defines land use and establishes the obligations and functions of the agents involved.

Environmental regeneration in Quito

The plan put together is an ambitious environmental project spanning several aspects of great importance: from citizens’ education and awareness raising  –a fundamental aspect in any initiative towards sustainability– through acquisition of plants and recycling systems or the construction of an incinerator for deceased urban wildlife, to the elimination of all illegal tips and construction of new clean points and treatment centres.

The aim is to be able to serve 98% of the population with waste collection services by 2025

Among the 48 action lines planned are included: building a treatment plant for organic matter to obtain compost, an anaerobic digestion plant for organic matter to obtain biogas, and four manual plants for the sorting and classification of recyclables for their subsequent treatment; and all adhering to social inclusion principles.

Achieving the ‘Zero Waste’ targets also means changing the culture, which will require active participation from politicians, public sector workers, public and private employers, and all citizens. In drawing up the comprehensive management model, Ineco’s experts have taken into account current and future types of waste, so as to determine their components and establish the policies to pursue with each of them. The aim is to be able to serve 98% of the population with waste collection services by 2025.

For the plan to succeed, the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ)’s recruitment policy will include standards promoting the use of products manufactured using recycled and/or reused materials, such that there will be new legislation in 2018. The economic sustainability of the waste management system will require a system of taxes and cost allocation that pays heed to the various strata of buying power.

How did the ‘Cero Basura’ programme arise?

Climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, excessive exploitation of resources, growth in consumption and waste generation demanded that we think about new avenues to explore.

The project comprises an ensemble of simple actions to ensure that the negative impact on the environment of our day-to-day activities is reduced. The end goal is the reduction and exploitation of resources based on a circular economy for resources: waste generation is reduced and waste is exploited to the maximum in the form of materials and energy.

How have companies and industries reacted to the plan?

The aforementioned unceasing changes are our driving force to promote and integrate environmental action into companies, which can make them more competitive and derive many advantages. Environmental policies, such as this expanded responsibility to which companies must adapt, will boost product sustainability at all stages of the production chain in a positive way. It is also important to note that companies, education institutions and other representatives of the public-private sector have taken part in the construction of the Master Plan, contributing a great deal and getting involved in meeting this target.

Recently you promoted the recovery of recyclable waste at the wholesale market in Quito. How was this experience?

The Environmental Department of Quito’s commitment was to involve traders, zonal administration and recyclers in a joint project that is enjoying success thanks to the participation of everyone. At the moment, 2.1 tonnes a month are recovered from the wholesale market. This is a goal and commitment for everyone to reactivate the economy of many families exploiting waste and looking after the planet using environmental best practices.

With the new plan, will the 2,000 tonnes of waste a day increase, decrease or remain the same?

The Master Plan for Comprehensive Waste Management coincides with the Metropolitan Plan for Development and Land Management 2015-2025, which plans for waste in production to be reduced by 5% per capita as a minimum by 2025 as compared with the production per capita for 2014. This figure, when compared and calculated alongside the annual growth rate of the metropolitan district, suggests that waste generation will increase over the upcoming years from 2,040 tonnes to 2,340 tonnes.

Comprehensive Management in the DMQ seeks for waste disposal to transition towards the circular economy or management of resources, in which waste is exploited to the maximum in the form of materials or energy for non-recoverable materials. Recyclable products and common waste are collected selectively in modern treatment facilities, sorted and explote.

Recyclable waste will go from 12% in 2014 to 22% in 2025, including recovery of recyclable material from the ET-Sur sorting plant. 19 neighbourhoods of Quito and 300 environmental agents will benefit from this increase.

Apart from laws, what is needed for citizens to collaborate in waste management?

Our waste management policy is to ensure integrated waste management under the ‘Cero Basura’ concept and the circular economy, with the focus on participation, co-responsibility of citizens and environmental and social responsibility. But above and beyond citizen obligations and ordinances, we have got directly involved in the community, neighbourhoods, companies, education institutions and other actors in society to raise their awareness and create environmental best practices. Fundamental to this process have been our education campaigns, whose protagonist is anyone who recycles and sorts their waste.

Waste reduction is based on a circular economy of resources

You have initiated several awareness raising campaigns and even a “tour of waste”. Is the public welcoming these initiatives?

More and more, comprehensive waste management requires tools in the value chain (generation prevention, sorting at source and collection, exploitation and treatment, until eventual disposal). The “tour of waste” was a pilot project to include and demonstrate all these processes. We have provided added value including mechanised collection, cutting-edge technology and open days for the media and the general public to visit the Quito landfill site.

We are delighted by the approval the tour has enjoyed in the press and especially among university students, who are surprised that in this city waste can end up as water and be a new source of energy. This motivates us to keep working and help other municipalities in the country in the same way.

It started years ago with work on projects in marginal neighbourhoods of Quito. Have you planned any special actions to reduce and manage waste in the most deprived and vulnerable areas?

The DMQ currently has 96.5% cover for waste collection. We are working every day to achieve our target, which is to reach all neighbourhoods in Quito.

The UN has chosen Quito to host the Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in October 2016. What agreements would you like to see there for sustainable urban development?

On those dates –17th to 20th October 2016– the city will bear witness to renewed vigour behind the global commitment to sustainable development and the setting out of a New Urban Agenda, which it is hoped will have a direct impact on urban policy on national, state and municipal levels. Quito has been chosen as the backdrop for numerous activities regarding the various central topics of the conference, in which all will be able to share experiences and responsible proposals aimed at creating safe, resilient, sustainable cities. This leads us to think about a city with integrated solid waste management, with new concepts such as that of ‘Cero Basura’, a commitment that should be extended to all other cities.

Isn’t reducing consumption in consumer societies a contradiction in terms?

It is a great challenge, which cannot be overcome overnight. Changing the consumer’s mindset and consumer culture will help to compare and choose products that are the greatest friends of the environment. Choosing by their origin, suitable packaging and sustainable manufacture will bring industrial change to companies, focusing on eco-designs, secondary resources and clean production.

Education is the key to sustainability. This is why we work daily to ensure more people find out somehow about our work, with consistent campaigns to care for the planet.

It has been said that there is healthy competition among large cities to be the first to be named among the most sustainable. Is this the case?

Clearly there is competition among major cities in terms of their local sustainability activities, and this can be seen not only from official recognition of various initiatives (such as the WWF City Challenge, the C40 City Climate Awards or the Siemens Green City Index), but also from the benefits this brings to their local governments and, most importantly, to their citizens. Recognition as a sustainable city can gain a city more attention from external investors, as well as providing international standing or cooperation on sustainability; it can generate opportunities for the city as a tourist destination as well as leadership and international positioning that open various doors for integration and exchange of experience.

Quito has not only been recognised as the most sustainable city in Ecuador, but was also selected as one of the 17 world finalists for the most sustainable city in the world award, conferred by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Close your eyes. How do you envision the Quito city you hope to achieve with this project?

I dream of – and believe it is possible to achieve – an environmentally responsible city, a time when its growth is in keeping with the natural, rational limit of its ecosystems on land and in the water; a city that thinks about and plans its territory keeping in mind its environmental assets and, as such, minimises the negative impacts of pollution; which preserves and uses in a sustainable way its natural resources and biodiversity, reducing risk; and is resilient to the effects of climate change. Its functioning is based on alternative energies and its mobility motivates citizens to use public spaces, generating collective wellbeing and quality of life for its citizens.

Ineco has completed the Master Plan for Comprehensive Waste Management and the legal framework for the Municipality of Quito, the subject of this edition’s cover story (see report). Quito City Council commissioned Ineco to conduct the study, financed by the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), which aims to meet the local needs to manage the nearly 2,000 tonnes of waste produced daily in the city.

In the image, Juan del Campo, Ineco project manager; Verónica Arias, secretary of Environment for Quito City Council (see interview) and Constanza Calderón (CAF sub representative in Ecuador).

The environment, which takes centre stage on this autumn’s cover, increasingly influences our projects and activities in Spain and around the world. With the support of Ineco, Ecuador’s capital Quito has launched initiatives to reduce waste and foster a circular economy of resources; this will without a doubt translate into improved welfare and quality of life for the city’s inhabitants.

Public policy is key in the move towards more sustainable cities. We are honoured with the opinion of María Verónica Arias Cabanilla, Environment secretary for the Municipality of Quito, the highest authority for environmental policy in the Ecuadorian capital. The city’s environmental policy includes the ‘Cero Basura’ programme, based on the integrated management of resources; this is an ambitious project in which Ineco was responsible for the Master Plan for Comprehensive Waste Management and its legal framework. This coincides with Quito’s selection by the UN to host the Habitat III Sustainable Cities Conference in October 2016. In addition to this, as Verónica Arias points out in her interview, Quito is Ecuador’s most sustainable city and one of the 17 finalists for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) award for the world’s most sustainable city.

Optimal management of an environmental resource such as the sky is another area of interest that we will address in these pages. Specifically, we have a report dedicated to ENAIRE’s significant technical efforts and investment to guarantee air safety with the highest levels of efficiency. The high concentration of flights in Europe requires a complex new automated air traffic control system: SACTA (so-called for its initials in Spanish) is a series of systems and equipment which ENAIRE is investing over 16 million euros to renovate. Ineco engineers, who are collaborating in the project, offer us a detailed description of the function of these services and what they bring us.

Public policy is key in the necessary move towards more sustainable cities

Also worth highlighting is Ineco’s more than 20 years of experience in supervising the manufacture of trains. This issue features an in-depth article on rolling stock design validation, supervision and testing, particularly in Spain, Chile, Brazil and Colombia, where we have recently renewed our contract.

Finally, I am proud to present the new modernisation project at Chiclayo airport in Peru, where a new terminal is being designed. This large aeronautical project will complement our existing project at Lima’s Jorge Chávez airport. These are big jobs and big challenges in a globalised world where we want to demonstrate the skills and capabilities of Spanish engineering.

Ineco, in conjunction with Tragsatec –a technological subsidiary of the Tragsa Group–, will be implementing the Master Plan for Comprehensive Solid Waste Management for the Metropolitan District of Quito (Ecuador). This consultancy work is organised within the framework of the Technical Cooperation Agreement between the Municipal Town Hall of the Metropolitan District of Quito and the Andean Development Corporation (CAF, as per its Spanish acronym). To achieve the goal of establishing a sustainable management system that guarantees efficient and effective services, the following tasks will be carried out: development of waste management models, preparation of a legal framework and a financial analysis of the present situation.

Ineco has a great deal of prior experience in Ecuador, having carried out projects there such as the review and standardisation of the conditions regarding the right to use and harness water for Senagua, as well as audit work on the Pifo-Papallacta Highway enlargement project.

Furthermore, since 2013 the company has been in charge of carrying out Ecuador’s Strategic Mobility Plan (PEM, as per its Spanish acronym), which encompasses the entire country and all modes of transport.

Last November, the government of Panama entrusted Ineco with its National Collection and Treatment of Waste Plan 2016-2026. This strategic plan takes into account the current state of waste collection, treatment and disposal on a nationwide level. The plan will also propose the legal framework as well as the actions required to solve current and future waste management issues in Panama.

The contract represents the definitive strengthening of Ineco’s role in the area of solid urban waste planning –a project that the company is also carrying out for the city of Quito (Ecuador). According to Miryam Sánchez, the technical director of Environmental and Waste Management at Ineco with 25 years in the sector, “we will draw on the great deal of experience we have in order to develop a 21st century waste management plan”.

The company has an office in Panama City where it is also conducting an assessment in addition to developing a proposal for remodelling work on Cerro Patacón –Panama City’s landfill.