- Sara Aagesen chaired the presentation of the results of the RTRP on investment in the ecological transition, held at the College of Architects of Madrid
- The distinguished entities have demonstrated innovation, impact and comprehensive approach in the development of projects financed with European funds
- The ministry manages more than 23,000 million euros to advance in the energy, water, ecological and territorial transition
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) held this Thursday the presentation of the results of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), an institutional meeting in which the deployment of public investments aimed at the ecological transition was taken stock and 39 recognitions were awarded to entities that have excelled in their execution.
The conference, held at the Official College of Architects of Madrid, was chaired by the Third Vice-President of the Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Sara Aagesen, who opened the event and presented the awards.
Vice-President Aagesen highlighted the leading role of MITECO in the implementation of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. He stressed that the ministry has met “all the milestones and objectives set in 2020 in a rigorous manner”, and specified that it has managed 27% of the 80,000 million euros of the plan, with 96% of the budget already mobilised and close to 70% awarded.
Aagesen insisted that “the principle that governs the action of the ministry is clear, and science says so: every euro invested far exceeds the cost of inaction”. In this sense, he claimed the strategic value of the investments made and their contribution to the ecological and social transformation of the country.
Finally, he affirmed that significant results are already being achieved and assured that the Government will continue to develop new lines of action. “We want to reinforce the axes that have worked and take advantage of one hundred percent of the RTRP funds,” he said in his opening speech.
The Recovery Plan is transforming our country with a more sustainable, fairer and more resilient model. And it does so thanks to those of you who are in the territory leading these projects with innovation, commitment and vision of the future. Through the RTRP, MITECO manages more than 23,280 million euros in investments aimed at promoting renewable energies, energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, improving water management, preserving ecosystems and promoting the circular economy, among other strategic areas. These investments are articulated through 13 components of the Plan and have made it possible to finance thousands of actions with a direct impact on the territory and citizens.
RECOGNITION OF EMBLEMATIC
PROJECTSWith the aim of making visible and recognising the good practices developed with these funds, MITECO has awarded 39 distinctions distributed in three categories:
• Innovation: for the development of pioneering projects in their fields of action.
• Impact or multiplier effect: due to its capacity for territorial, social or sectoral transformation.
• Comprehensive actions: to address multiple lines of action of the ministry in a holistic way.
The award-winning entities come from public administrations, companies, social organizations and research centers that have actively participated in the deployment of the RTRP. These have been the projects recognized:
A. Recognition of innovation for the development of projects within the scope of the RTRP:
- Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture: for the innovation in the sector and the methodology used, through a program to transform extensive livestock farming in mountain areas in coexistence with large carnivores.
- Sant Boi de Llobregat City Council (Barcelona): for the design of an innovative project based on the connectivity of the green and blue infrastructure consisting of the balanced and equitable implementation of actions throughout the municipality and the peri-urban area.
- RIA Foundation, University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), Pablo de Olavide University, Plataforma pola Defensa do Monte, Montescola Foundation (FM) and Rianxo City Council (La Coruña): for the promotion of a project with a powerful transformative character of the territory that carries out, from a focus of community commitment and an exemplary local welcome, sustainable management, based on sound scientific methodologies, to increase the resilience of the Barbanza mountains.
- Granollers City Council (Barcelona): for an innovative design, within the framework of the project that proposes and develops the concept of Superblocks, generating a high-impact urban change thanks to the liberation of a large area of public space and the development of renaturation actions.
- Fraga City Council (Huesca): for an improvement in river dynamics, through innovative techniques, which allow the increase of drainage capacity, habitat diversification, garbage removal and, in general, forest hydrological restoration, through the project to restore the river ecosystem of the Cinca River and the reduction of flood risk in the urban environment.
- Fundación Comercio Para el Desarrollo (COPADE): for its work in promoting gender equality, through innovation in economic initiatives led by women to give sustainable use to non-timber forest products from Spanish forests.
- Harsco Metals Lycrete, S.A.U: for innovation in the product, through the project to develop a nationwide plant that will produce sustainable asphalt from steel slag.
- Aviation International Recycling, S.L.: for establishing in its project the first authorised centre for the treatment of End-of-Life Aircraft (AFU), which represents an innovation in the product, in which all the operations necessary for the correct environmental management of an aircraft at the end of its useful life are addressed in a centralised way.
- Saint-Gobain Placo Ibérica, S.A.U: for improving the efficiency of the use of materials through strategies to replace virgin materials with recycled material, reducing the use of non-renewable materials, creating through its project a new market for secondary raw materials for a material whose treatment destination is landfill, and therefore carrying out an innovation in the process.
- Progress Chemist, S.L. and 3A Biotech, S.L.: for carrying out an innovation in the industrial process, through their project that involves a symbiosis between a cosmetic industry and a company specialising in the manufacture of antioxidants, preservatives and functional ingredients.
- Cotton South, S.L.: for its project to improve waste management, which is an innovation in the industrial process, whose special interest is the recovery of substances from cooking water for subsequent use by other companies, favouring the creation of value systems.
- Sidenor Aceros Especiales S.L: for innovation, through the project that has led to the development of new optimised and sustainable slag recovery processes, for the manufacture of concrete and bituminous mixtures for high value-added applications.
- Aigües de Barcelona, Empresa Metropolitana de Gestió del Cicle Integral de l’aigua, S.A.: for the development of a project to improve sustainability and resilience to the effects of climate change at all stages of the water cycle, through innovation and digital transformation.
- Sociedad Municipal de Aguas de Burgos, S.A.: for its project for the provision of quality services, promoting digitalisation and technological innovation in the integral management of the water cycle and for favouring industrial implementation and economic activity in an area with low population density and a continuous decrease in its inhabitants.
- Community of Irrigators of the lower Guadalquivir valley: for its project, which involves innovating, through modernization and digitalization, minimizing water consumption in a responsible way, improving communication between the irrigator and the community, analyzing and even foreseeing scenarios in advance, which minimizes the impacts on water bodies.
- PERTE Vinalopó Group: for the innovative impulse, through its project consisting of the implementation of new technologies and agricultural practices, acting as a driver of change towards the modernisation of the sector, and for raising awareness in the rural community about the benefits of digitalisation, especially in terms of water efficiency, cost reduction, production optimisation and sustainability.
- Saitec S.A.: for its innovative project, which has allowed the development of a prototype of a floating offshore wind platform, and contributes to the testing and validation of new technological developments in the field of floating offshore wind with better environmental integration.
- SEG Automotive Spain, S.A.U: for the technological innovation involved in its project for the design and development of the corresponding manufacturing processes for an electric motor for electric bicycles (e-Bikes).
- Bilbao’s municipal urban transport service, Bilbobus: for the innovation in the solution used for its project, which involves the design and construction of an electric charging infrastructure for the supply of energy from Metro Bilbao’s electrical installations to the new electric buses of the urban public transport bus service.
- Nordex Electrolyzers S.L: for the project for an innovative design of a pressurized alkaline electrolyzer, adaptable to variable operation with a direct wind and photovoltaic electricity supply.
- H2green La Isla S.L. and Enwatts 2022 01, S.L.U: for technological innovation and innovation in the sector, through the project to constitute a green hydrogen hub in the La Isla Industrial Estate (Dos Hermanas, Seville), which promotes a transition towards a cleaner and more sustainable industrial park concept.
B) Recognition of the impact and/or multiplier effect in the development of projects within the scope of the RTRP:
- Gijón/Xixón City Council (Asturias): for the development of a project in the vicinity of the Piles River, exemplary from a technical point of view due to the demolition of dams and artificial surfaces, with the consequent impact of a significant increase in the renaturalised space.
- Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (IRTA): for its pioneering work, through a project that proposes models for the promotion of extensive livestock farming through the creation of a municipally-owned herd to manage abandoned forest mass, reduce the risk of fires and boost the local economy, with the generation of a replicable model.
- Gandía City Council (Valencia): for its contribution to flood risk reduction and its scalability, based on nature-based solutions, of two highly populated areas, through the creation of a large lamination area and the elimination of obstacles created by invasive vegetation, through the project of renaturation and mitigation of the effects of flooding in the green corridor of the Barranc de Beniopa.
- Enercoop: for the impact of its “remote” solar energy self-consumption project, which combines the most cutting-edge photovoltaic energy technology at the service of a traditional sector, such as residential or agriculture, with the creation of an energy community, the promotion of sustainable mobility, the installation of charging points and a system of governance of the same with gender equality plans, actions of social dynamization and adaptation to regional and/or local priorities.
- Badajoz Provincial Council and Cáceres Provincial Council: for their project, with multiplier and replicable effects, through the creation of Community Transformation Offices that facilitate the implementation of energy communities in areas of demographic challenge.
- RWE Renewables Iberia SAU: due to its impact on the local economy, through its wind repowering project, which in addition to carrying out renewable energy production and taking advantage of existing evacuation infrastructures, generates employment in its geographical area and an increase in the contribution to the municipal coffers where it is located, and having as an added value that the main components of the new wind turbines have come from the value chain European.
- Recursos de la Biomasa (REBI) S.L: for its Heat Network project in Cuenca, with already visible effects, and the impact on decarbonization and its replicability in other environments.
C) Recognition of the development of exemplary actions for their comprehensiveness or for addressing a multiplicity of lines of action of MITECO for the development of projects within the scope of the RTRP:
- Santa María la Real Foundation for Historical Heritage: for the development of a project that includes exemplary actions for its comprehensiveness, such as the recovery of the mosaic landscape through the promotion of the use and improvement of ecosystems of interest, reforestation work, the use of biochar and the need to generate employment through the training of shepherds.
- Galletas Gullón, S.A.: for its contribution to the approach and integration of several lines of action of MITECO, through its project that guarantees the recovery of food waste in order to be able to reintroduce it into the production system, both directly and indirectly, as well as its link with the structuring of the territory and with a manifest commitment to the policies of demographic challenge.
- Empresa Municipal D’aigües I Clavegueram, S.A. (EMAYA): for its project to improve efficiency in management, promote a sustainable and transparent territorial model of water and data, which covers the urban water cycle in an integral way, from collection for supply to sanitation for return to the environment, and, therefore, develop a project that includes exemplary actions due to their comprehensiveness.
- General Community of Irrigators of the Aragon and Catalonia Canal: for its project to advance in the process of digitalisation of the irrigable area of the Aragon and Catalonia Canal, which involves a commitment to the control of nitrates by the different azarbes and canals in the exploitation, making technological tools available to irrigators to reduce the use of fertilisers and pesticides, while improving the quality of the waters and their returns to the rivers, and to achieve the fixation of population in rural territory, which involves the approach and integration of several lines of action of MITECO.
- Iberdrola and FCC: for their project to create the Energyloop plant, for the recycling of discarded blades from wind farms, which involves carrying out a comprehensive action in the field of renewable energy and the circular economy.
- Villarcayo City Council (Burgos): for the approach and integration of several lines of action of MITECO, in its projects of outdoor lighting, renewal of the municipal fleet, sustainable mobility, bike lane and rental of electric bikes, which are an example of investments in clean energies that can be developed in municipalities with a demographic challenge and a good use of the funds received.
- City Council of Torrente de Cinca (Huesca) and City Council of Biesca (Huesca): for the exemplary nature of their comprehensive projects, focused on the renovation of public lighting, which promote the use of clean energies in municipalities with demographic challenges, and the good use of the funds received.
- Navas de San Juan City Council (Jaén): for its project of photovoltaic solar installations in public buildings for electricity generation and self-consumption with storage, which is an example of comprehensiveness and the promotion of the use of clean energies in municipalities with a demographic challenge.
- Ponfeblino Tourist Train Consortium, made up of the municipalities of Ponferrada, Cubillos del Sil, Toreno, Páramo del Sil, Palacios, Villablino and the Bierzo Regional Council: for the promotion of an ecological and sustainable tourism model as a driving force for the regions of El Bierzo and Laciana (León), through its project for the recovery of the “Ponfeblino” train, which involves the approach and integration of several lines of action of MITECO.
- Calanda City Council (Teruel): for its project that addresses and integrates several lines of action of MITECO, consisting of the creation of new facilities to house a research, development and innovation hub that will facilitate the establishment of companies and create jobs in sectors of recycling, light return, electric mobility, social innovation and help for people at risk of social exclusion.
- Xermade City Council (Lugo): for the development of its project to create the International Turning Centre, a digital space with an innovative approach to dissemination, research and creation around the traditional trade of turning, which involves the approach and integration of several lines of action of MITECO.
