The Minister of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs, Elena Espinosa; the rector of the University of Alcalá, Virgilio Zapatero, and the director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva, today signed a Framework Collaboration Agreement to continue encouraging the work of the Observatory of Sustainability in Spain (OSE).

Since its creation in February 2005, the Biodiversity Foundation has supported the activity of the SBI, which, in recent years, has become a reference body for the integrated assessment of sustainable development processes.

The agreement aims to ensure the continuity of the Observatory’s compilation and dissemination tasks, so that public authorities and social entities can continue to have the periodic reports of an independent, credible and rigorous research body.

In its four years of existence, the SBI has published three annual sustainability reports and four thematic reports, based on indicators: “Land use changes in Spain”, “Air quality in cities”, “Water and sustainability” and “Local Sustainability”. Today the book “Local Sustainability. An urban and rural approach”, published by the Ministry of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs.

“Local Sustainability: an urban and rural approach” aims to deepen the analysis of local development processes, attending to both the urban and rural worlds, in a diversified territorial context The report crosses for the first time third-generation data and the best available information to analyse the development models of urban and rural areas in Spain. their interactions and their economic, environmental and social impacts from an innovative strategic and methodological perspective.