Milan Pushes Forward on Green Infrastructure as Europe's Heatwave Toll Mounts

Milan announced Thursday that the first phase of its Raggi Verdi programme — the city's flagship network of green corridors radiating outward from the centre — will be completed along Viale Monza and Corso Buenos Aires by the end of September, ahead of the original December deadline. The acceleration comes as France recorded more than 2,000 excess deaths during the peak of a continent-wide heatwave, and as European capitals face mounting political pressure to show tangible action rather than long-range climate commitments.

The timing is not coincidental. Milan has been baking under temperatures above 36°C this week, and the urban heat island effect in dense inner-city neighbourhoods — particularly the Porta Romana and Greco districts — has pushed surface temperatures several degrees higher still. Palazzo Marino has been fielding calls from residents and business associations demanding faster rollout of shade structures, water misters, and tree canopy coverage that city planning documents promised years ago.

Raggi Verdi and the Neighbourhoods Feeling the Heat

The Raggi Verdi scheme, administered through the comune's Environment and Green Areas directorate, aims to plant 3 million trees across Milan and its hinterland by 2030. The city is currently at roughly 670,000 trees planted since the programme launched in 2019 — a figure city officials acknowledge is well short of pace. The Viale Monza corridor, stretching from Piazzale Loreto toward the Niguarda area, is one of five priority axes. Construction crews were visible this week between Via Padova and Via Palmanova, installing new planters and permeable paving designed to reduce runoff.

At the same time, the Forestami foundation — a public-private partnership involving the Comune di Milano, the Città Metropolitana, and corporate sponsors including Intesa Sanpaolo — is running a parallel canopy initiative focused on peripheral municipalities. The foundation planted approximately 48,000 trees in 2025 and is targeting 60,000 this year, with sites concentrated around Sesto San Giovanni and Segrate where industrial land is being reclaimed.

In Porta Nuova, where the luxury residential and commercial towers have reshaped the skyline north of Piazza della Repubblica, the BioCity district project is entering its second phase. Developers Hines and Coima are required under the 2021 planning agreement with the comune to deliver 11,000 square metres of new green surface by mid-2027 — a condition that has taken on new urgency as the neighbourhood's glass-and-steel towers absorb and radiate summer heat.

Olympics Sustainability Commitments Under Scrutiny

The Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, now fewer than seven months from opening ceremony, has added a specific accountability layer to the city's environmental performance. The organising committee's sustainability plan — filed with the International Olympic Committee and publicly available since March 2024 — commits to carbon neutrality for all Milan-based venues, including the Palazzo del Ghiaccio on Via Piranesi and the refurbished Mediolanum Forum in Assago. Independent auditors from the organisation DNV are due to publish their interim compliance report in September.

Critics, including the local branch of Legambiente, argue the carbon offsetting provisions in the plan rely too heavily on forestry credits rather than direct emissions cuts. The group released a briefing this week noting that the refrigeration systems at Palazzo del Ghiaccio still run on HFC coolants rather than the natural refrigerant alternatives the original 2021 bid documentation referenced. Organising committee representatives have said the technical specifications are under review, with a final decision expected before October.

For residents trying to cope with the immediate heat, the comune has extended its network of centri climatizzati — air-conditioned cooling centres — to 47 locations across all nine municipalities, up from 31 last summer. The nearest to the central station area is at the Civica Scuola di Cinema on Viale Fulvio Testi, open daily until 22:00 through at least 20 July. The city's emergency weather hotline, active since Wednesday, logged more than 1,400 calls in its first 48 hours — a figure that underscores how far the infrastructure is from matching the scale of the problem it is meant to solve.