#Budaörs4CSR: public-private cooperation for a greener city

The context

Budaörs is a dynamically growing small town with a good vibe and picturesque environment at the southern edge of the Buda-mountain. Well recognized pieces of modern architecture are in warm harmony with the historical monuments and the natural environment. The M1-M7 highways going towards the Lake-Balaton and Vienna, are cutting through the commercial area of Budaörs. This is why many people calls Budaörs the western gate of Budapest. The cca. 30.000 inhabitants are enjoying high standard public services in the city, while the well-organized public institutions and the location both attract people to live in this hungarian town.

Budaörs and the CITIES4CSR project

Budaörs has been keen to participate in the CITIES4CSR project because there have been too few interactions between the municipality and the many businesses located here. The aim was to intensify these ties for the sake of long-term and flourishing cooperation across sectors, resulting further mutually organized and implemented projects that serve well local interest.

To start off with, Budaörs managed to create a smaller pilot project. Based on the URBACT Local Group’s (ULG) decision, the project was meant to address environmental issues and related cultural changes; namely planting trees and doing relevant dissemination.

Budaörs and the ULG

The Budaörs ULG attracted 13 members on a permanent basis. Some of them are city council members, members of the city management, experts and representatives of businesses and NGO-s.

The project started with a communication campaign in October 2021. The idea was to engage as many businesses and stakeholders as possible. So far the campaign showed to be a real success: 10 partners have already been involved in the project.

The tree planting program started on November 11, 2021. There have been opening speeches from the Mayor of Budaörs, Mr. Tamás Wittinghoff, and the managing director of Nhood Services Hungary Ltd. the operator of Auchan Korzó, Mr. Pascal Steens, empahsysing on the importance of climate-change, and local cooperation as part of their CSR activities. After this ceremony, the trees have been planted by our guests, with the caring help of Budaörs City-maintenance Non-profit organization. Take a look at this video to discover more about the initiative hold by the city. 

The Nhood people have planted some more trees also in the parking area of Budaörs Auchan and Auchan Korzó. Nhood company itself aim to plant as much as 1.000 trees by the summer of 2022.

The other day, municipality employees voluntarily planted some more trees in a residential area, next to a kinder garden.

One week later, the teams of WAMATEC Hungary Ltd. and Timac Agro Hunagry Ltd. have planted trees in a city park, which was twofold: one is the CSR-related values and the other is team-building for them. Timac Agro even paid attention to bring the nutriment best fitted the soil there.

Civic organizations too have decided to join the project. One of them was “Friends of Budaörs Gardens”, who offered another 200 pieces of trees for the public to plant in their private gardens this year.

The “tree planting” campaign kept going in November 2021 and the project set out the 200 pieces of trees as originally planned to do in the city and in cooperation with different stakeholders.

Article written by: Sándor Szabó