A new technical secretariat will help embed sustainable measures in urban procurement, signalling a multi‑year push to align contracts with climate goals.
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Ajuntament de Barcelona is seeking technical assistance to help its Urban Space Department implement sustainable public procurement measures from 2025 to 2027. The Technical Secretariat for Climate Action is framed as a dedicated support function to knit day‑to‑day purchasing to the city’s climate objectives.
Published in October 2025, the contract notice is concise: it calls for technical assistance to the Urban Space Department to implement sustainable public procurement measures. The timeframe to 2027 points to a multi‑year effort to turn climate commitments into consistent buying practice across urban projects.
While the notice does not set out detailed tasks, the intent is clear. The technical secretariat will provide the capacity the department needs to make sustainability a standard part of the specification and evaluation process, rather than an add‑on.
Barcelona has been edging sustainable criteria into procurement across multiple services for several years. In April 2021, the city sought technical assistance for the Directorate of Infrastructure Services and Urban Space with sustainable public procurement measures, signalling early groundwork in the same domain (link). The approach also surfaced in works delivery: in May 2021, the municipal infrastructure company sought coordination and management teams for social facilities, again with sustainable public procurement measures (link).
By 2024, sustainable requirements were visible in core corporate services. In August 2024, the Municipal Institute of Informatics procured operations and user service management “with sustainable measures” (link). A month later, the Municipal Institute of Parks and Gardens sought technical, administrative, legal and logistical support that emphasised sustainable public procurement measures (link).
The pipeline for capital projects mirrors this trajectory. In April 2025, the Sant Martí district signalled a framework for project drafting across districts, incorporating sustainable public procurement measures (link). In June 2025, Barcelona d’Infraestructures Municipals returned to market for technical assistance to coordinate works and management teams for social facilities (link).
Beyond the city council, nearby public bodies are building the governance and tools around sustainable procurement. In March 2025, the Port of Barcelona sought a Technical Office for Sustainability to plan events, manage affiliated companies, expand memberships to a sustainability initiative, conduct surveys, prepare reports and monitor sustainability projects (link). And in July 2024, the Provincial Council advanced a cloud‑based procurement platform for integration into its corporate environment, a sign of the region’s wider digital shift in buying systems (link).
Elsewhere in the city’s public sector, sustainability technical assistance has meant building the data and compliance backbone. In September 2022, MERCABARNA’s sustainability department contracted consultancy to support its PES 22–26 strategy, including data collection and analysis, development of a sustainability report and infographic summary, coordination of an audit, identifying a certifiable management system, and drafting specifications for a digital management tool (link). In October 2025, the Universitat de Barcelona sought technical services to draft environmental licensing projects and documentation across several buildings, following a structured, multi‑phase compliance process (link).
These examples do not define the new Urban Space brief, but they show how technical offices in the same ecosystem have approached sustainability: by creating repeatable processes, gathering the right evidence, and setting up tools that make policy delivery measurable.
Across Spain and the EU, buyers are turning to external support to wire climate goals into procurement. In May 2024, Bilbao sought environmental technical assistance to drive its 2050 Environment Strategy and the city’s 2030 Climate Mission (link). In January 2024, Grenoble Alpes Métropole tendered for climatological expertise to support an innovative public procurement under the Climaborough urban project (link).
At national and regional levels, programmes are being set up to support cities at scale. In May 2025, Fundación Biodiversidad sought technical assistance to help Spanish cities move towards climate neutrality and resilience through biodiversity, green infrastructure, and sustainable mobility initiatives (link). In June 2025, Sweden’s KTH launched a consultancy to strengthen the implementation of its Climate Agreement 2030 across 48 municipalities, covering data sources, collection, carbon budgets and analysis methods (link). And in July 2025, Germany’s federal research institute for building and urban affairs commissioned research into sustainably integrating climate protection and adaptation into urban development funding (link).
The city’s new technical secretariat is part of a wider move to make sustainability a routine feature of public buying. Watch for how Ajuntament de Barcelona defines deliverables and governance for the support function, how the remit is organised across the Urban Space Department, and how the 2025–2027 timeline shapes staged outputs. It will also be worth noting whether the work connects with the region’s ongoing efforts to digitise procurement and to standardise sustainability processes seen in other recent notices.
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