The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) held the presentation of the results of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan (PRTR) this Thursday. This institutional meeting reviewed the deployment of public investments aimed at the ecological transition, and awarded 39 recognitions to entities that have excelled in their implementation.

The event, held at the Official College of Architects of Madrid, was chaired by the Third Vice President of the Government and Minister for 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. She emphasized that the ministry has rigorously met “all the milestones and objectives set in 2020,” and specified that it has managed 27% of the €80 billion plan, with 96% of the budget already mobilized and nearly 70% allocated.

Aagesen insisted that “the principle guiding the ministry’s actions is clear, and science speaks for it: every euro invested far exceeds the cost of inaction.” In this regard, he emphasized the strategic value of the investments made and their contribution to the country’s ecological and social transformation.

Finally, he stated that significant results are already being achieved and assured that the Government will continue developing new lines of action. “We want to strengthen the pillars that have worked and fully utilize the PRTR funds,” he stated in his opening remarks.

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 in the region leading these projects with innovation, commitment, and a vision for the future. Through the PRTR, MITECO manages more than €23.28 billion in investments aimed at promoting renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, improving water management, preserving ecosystems, and boosting the circular economy, among other strategic areas. These investments are structured through 13 components of the Plan and have funded thousands of initiatives with a direct impact on the region and its citizens.

RECOGNITION FOR EMBLEMATIC PROJECTS

With the aim of highlighting and recognizing the good practices developed with these funds, MITECO has awarded 39 distinctions in three categories:

• Innovation: for the development of pioneering projects in their fields of activity.
• Impact or multiplier effect: due to its capacity for territorial, social or sectoral transformation.
• Comprehensive actions: to holistically address multiple lines of action of the ministry.

The award-winning entities come from public administrations, companies, social organizations, and research centers that have actively participated in the deployment of the PRTR. The following projects were recognized:

A. Recognition of innovation for the development of projects within the scope of the PRTR:

• Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture : for innovation in the sector and the methodology employed, through a transformative program for 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 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, Platform for the Defense of the Mountain, Montescola Foundation (FM) and Rianxo City Council (A Coruña): for promoting a project with a powerful transformative character for the territory that carries out, from a focus on community commitment and exemplary local acceptance, sustainable management based on solid 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 freeing up of a large area of ​​public space and the development of renaturalization actions.
• Fraga City Council (Huesca) : for an improvement in river dynamics, through innovative techniques, which allow for an increase in drainage capacity, habitat diversification, garbage removal and, in general, hydrological-forest restoration, through the Cinca River fluvial ecosystem restoration project and the reduction of flood risk in the urban environment.
• Trade for Development Foundation (COPADE): for its work promoting gender equality through innovation in women-led economic initiatives to ensure the sustainable use of non-timber forest products from Spanish forests.
• Harsco Metals Lycrete, SAU : for product innovation, through the development of a nationwide plant that will produce sustainable asphalt from steel slag.
• Aviation International Recycling, SL: for establishing the first authorized center for the treatment of End-of-Life Aircraft (EOLA) in its project, 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 centralized manner.
• Saint-Gobain Placo Ibérica, SAU: for improving the efficiency of material use through strategies to replace virgin materials with recycled materials, reducing the use of non-renewable materials, creating a new market for secondary raw materials for a material destined for landfill treatment, and therefore implementing a process innovation.
• Progress Chemist, SL and 3A Biotech, SL : for carrying out an innovation in the industrial process, through their project that represents a symbiosis between a cosmetics industry and a company specialized in the manufacture of antioxidants, preservatives and functional ingredients.
• Cotton South, SL : for its project to improve waste management, which represents an innovation in the industrial process, whose special interest is the recovery of substances from cooking water for subsequent use by other companies, promoting the creation of value systems.
• Sidenor Aceros Especiales SL : for innovation, through the project that has led to the development of new, optimized 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, SA : 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, SA : for its project to provide quality services, promoting digitalization and technological innovation in the comprehensive management of the water cycle and for fostering industrial establishment and economic activity in an area with low population density and a continued decline in its inhabitants.
• Irrigation Community of the Lower Guadalquivir Valley : for its project, which involves innovation through modernization and digitalization, minimizing water consumption responsibly, improving communication between the irrigator and the community, analyzing and even anticipating scenarios in advance, thereby minimizing the impact on water bodies.
• PERTE Vinalopó Group : for its innovative drive through its project involving the implementation of new agricultural technologies and practices, acting as a driving force for change toward the modernization of the sector, and for raising awareness in the rural community about the benefits of digitalization, especially in terms of water efficiency, cost reduction, production optimization, and sustainability.
• Saitec SA : for its innovative project, which has enabled the development of a prototype floating offshore wind platform and contributed to the testing and validation of new technological developments in the field of floating offshore wind power with improved environmental integration.
• SEG Automotive Spain, SAU : for the technological innovation represented by its project for the design and development of the corresponding manufacturing processes for an electric motor for electric bicycles (e-Bikes).
• Bilbao municipal urban transport service, Bilbobus : for the innovation in the solution used for its project, which involves the design and construction of an electrical charging infrastructure to supply energy from the Bilbao Metro electrical installations to the new electric buses of the urban public transport bus service.
• Nordex Electrolyzers SL : for the project for an innovative design of a pressurized alkaline electrolyzer, adaptable to variable operation with direct wind and photovoltaic power supply.
• H2green La Isla SL and Envatios 2022 01, SLU : for technological innovation and innovation in the sector, through the project to establish a green hydrogen hub in the La Isla Industrial Park (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 PRTR :

• Gijón/Xixón City Council (Asturias): for the development of a project in the area surrounding 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 renaturalized space.
• Institute of Agrofood Research and Technology (IRTA): for its pioneering work, through a project that proposes models for promoting extensive livestock farming by creating a municipally owned cabin to manage abandoned forests, reduce the risk of fires, and boost the local economy by generating a replicable model.
• Gandía City Council (Valencia): for its contribution to flood risk reduction and scalability, based on nature-based solutions, in two highly populated areas, through the creation of a large buffer zone and the removal of obstacles created by invasive vegetation, through the renaturalization and flood mitigation project in the Barranc de Beniopa green corridor.
• Enercoop : for the impact of its remote self-consumption solar energy project, which combines cutting-edge photovoltaic energy technology serving a traditional sector, such as residential or agricultural, with the creation of an energy community, the promotion of sustainable mobility, the installation of charging points and a governance system with gender equality plans, social revitalization actions and adaptation to regional and/or local priorities.
• Badajoz Provincial Council and Cáceres Provincial Council : for their project, with multiplying and replicable effects, through the creation of Community Transformation Offices that facilitate the implementation of energy communities in areas with demographic challenges.
• RWE Renewables Iberia SAU : for its impact on the local economy, through its wind power repowering project, which in addition to carrying out renewable energy production and taking advantage of existing evacuation infrastructure, generates employment in its geographical area and an increase in the contribution to the municipal coffers where it is located, and having as added value that the main components of the new wind turbines have come from the European value chain.
• Recursos de la Biomasa (REBI) SL : 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 MITECO’s lines of action for the development of projects within the scope of the PRTR.

• Santa María la Real Historical Heritage Foundation : for the development of a project that includes exemplary actions for its comprehensiveness, such as the recovery of the mosaic landscape by promoting 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, SA : for its contribution to addressing and integrating several lines of action of MITECO, through its project that guarantees the recovery of food waste so that it can be reintroduced into the production system, both directly and indirectly, as well as its connection with the structuring of the territory and with a clear commitment to demographic challenge policies.
• Empresa Municipal D’aigües I Clavegueram, SA (EMAYA): for its project to improve management efficiency, promote a sustainable and transparent territorial model for water and data, covering the urban water cycle in an integral manner, from collection for supply to sanitation for return to the environment, and, therefore, develop a project that includes exemplary actions due to its comprehensiveness.
• General Community of Irrigators of the Aragon and Catalonia Canal: for its project to advance the digitalization process of the irrigated area of ​​the Aragon and Catalonia Canal, which entails a commitment to controlling nitrates from the various irrigation channels and canals on the farm, providing irrigators with technological tools to reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides, while improving the quality of the water and its return to the rivers, and achieving the settlement of population in rural areas, which entails addressing and integrating several lines of action of MITECO.
• Iberdrola and FCC: for their project to create the Energyloop plant, for recycling discarded wind farm blades, which represents a comprehensive initiative in the field of renewable energy and the circular economy.
• Villarcayo Town Council (Burgos ) : for addressing and integrating several lines of action of MITECO, in its projects for outdoor lighting, municipal fleet renewal, sustainable mobility, bike lanes and electric bike rental, which are an example of investments in clean energy that can be developed in municipalities with demographic challenges and a good use of the funds received.
• Torrente de Cinca City Council (Huesca) and Biesca City Council (Huesca): for the exemplary nature of their comprehensive projects, focused on the renovation of public lighting, which promote the use of clean energy in municipalities facing demographic challenges, and the effective use of the funds received.
• Navas de San Juan City Council (Jaén): for its project to install photovoltaic solar panels in public buildings for electricity generation and self-consumption with storage, which represents an example of comprehensiveness and the promotion of clean energy use in municipalities facing demographic challenges.
• Ponfeblino Tourist Train Consortium, made up of the town councils 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 addressing and integrating several lines of action of MITECO.
• Calanda City Council (Teruel): for its project, which 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 the sectors of recycling, light conversion, electric mobility, social innovation, and assistance to people at risk of social exclusion.
• Xermade City Council (Lugo): for the development of its project to create the International Turnery Centre, a digital space with an innovative approach to dissemination, research and creation around the traditional craft of turnery, which involves addressing and integrating several lines of action of MITECO.