We have six and a half years left to reach the date set by the United Nations member states to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These are the priorities for action to end poverty, protect the planet, and improve the lives and prospects of people worldwide.
The 17 goals —and 169 targets— were agreed upon in New York in 2015 by 150 world leaders. With them, the 2030 Agenda was drafted as an action radar to combat climate change and social inequalities globally and locally, from every private home to large multinationals.
The preservation of the planet is in everyone's hands, in every individual daily gesture. Choosing what we consume, and where, gives us a lot of responsibility in this mission. As much as the governments of each country, cities, and towns have, as guarantors of example, performance, and promotion of everything that brings us closer to achieving sustainability goals.
Barcelona is one of the advanced cities in this example. The progressive disappearance of architectural barriers and limitation of vehicle circulation show an urban model of integration more designed for people that, despite still having much to improve, stands out above other equally or more attractive capitals such as Paris, London, or New York.
In 2011, Barcelona was the first urban destination in the world to receive the Biosphere certification in recognition of its promotion of sustainability. This is a distinction awarded by the Responsible Tourism Institute (ITR), a non-governmental, non-profit organization, linked to UNESCO and a partner of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC).
For more than twenty years, the IRT has been working to implement good practices for tourist and leisure enjoyment that are respectful of the environment. And one way it reaps the fruits of its work is by confirming that administrations —such as the Barcelona City Council— and public and private companies are working along the same lines. It does so through Biosphere certifications. The ITR certifies the commitment and actions in sustainability carried out by entities, establishments, and tourist services that align with the SDGs of the 2030 agenda for a healthy life for people and the environment.
An eco-hotel in El Raval
The Biosphere seal guarantees that actions are promoted in accordance with the SDGs, and in the city of Barcelona, more than 400 companies have received it this year. Of all of them, almost 40% are in the accommodation category. One of them is the Hostal Grau, managed by Mònica Grau, granddaughter of the building's former owners, which dates back to 1862. It is located at number 27 on Ramelleres street, where Mònica's grandparents ran the Céntrico Bar, famous for her grandmother Mercedes' vermouth. In 1960, they opened the first guesthouse, Hosteria Grau, which her son renovated in 1993, and now her granddaughter has turned the establishment into a small sustainable hotel: the Eco Hostal Grau.
The first thing she did was to recover all the furniture from her grandparents' house and from old farmhouses that, otherwise, might have been lost. She restored them, and with a gesture of social responsibility, she did it with the L'Estoc cooperative, which employs people with functional diversity in its workshop.
The Hostal Grau is located at number 27 on Ramelleres street, where Mònica's grandparents ran the Céntrico Bar, famous for her grandmother Mercedes' vermouth.Mònica also had specialists calculate the hotel's carbon footprint to adapt the rooms and all services to a minimum environmental impactFor example, "if you believe that your room does not need to be cleaned, with the water and time saved by the staff who would do it, the hotel makes a donation to an association that works for the preservation of forests," explains the owner of Hostal Grau.No chemicals, plastic, or PVC, they have recycling bins, and they use the hand-washing water for the toilet tank. All restaurant products are zero-kilometer and they make homemade jams with organic fruit.
This is the third year it has obtained the Biosphere certificate. It was not difficult at all because it had previously achieved Leed certification, a very restrictive international guarantee with which it already had to choose, among other ecological supervisions, all biodegradable materials for the works it carried out.
Craftsmanship in the neighborhood of the old guilds
Also in Ciutat Vella, but in the Born neighborhood, is the store, workshop, and artisanal jewelry school of Joan Rovira, certified with the Biosphere seal. As a child, this jeweler already experimented with the tools his father used, whom he imitated by playing at making jewelry. He studied Fine Arts at Escola Massana and is now one of the artisans who helps keep alive the original spirit of the Born streets dedicated to the guilds of manual trades and with natural materials. His bamboo creations welcome you to his space on Carrer dels Cotoners, 10. You look up and see Joan working in his workshop, combining ancestral techniques and his creative talent with which he creates and teaches to create unique pieces of bamboo and wood with gold, silver, and bronze, among other materials, many of which come from recycled jewelry. It is a family business with a lot of personality and a very close relationship with tourists and Barcelonans.
A few streets from Joan's store, at number 10 Carrer dels Assaonadors, there is another craft workshop that has earned Biosphere recognition. Its soul is Angelika Heinbach, a German woman who has lived in Barcelona for more than thirty years and was fascinated by modernist mosaic and the trencadís technique. In her hands, broken ceramic tile remnants are the raw material of her proposal: experiencing ancient art. With it, Angelika accompanies tourists in making their own souvenirs of Barcelona, which can be magnets of their sports teams' shields or photo frames, always recycling mosaic pieces. That's why Angelika has named her proposal Mosaiccos, which she also offers as a teambuilding initiative, as it combines the art of trencadís with company objectives, in workshops that promote team integration.
Local fishing
And a step away from the Born, in the fishermen's port of this city, who go out every day with their boat, the people of Cap a mar prepare orders of freshly caught fish, a basket that delivers prawns, mussels, langoustines, sea bass, fish for soup... "We are fishermen from Barceloneta since before 1895", this is how those who also share their fishing art introduce themselves. The entity Cap a Mar has also been awarded the Biosphere certification because they carry out outreach activities, talks, and activities that help raise social awareness about the necessary health of the sea, responsible consumption, and its benefits. At the Barceloneta Civic Center they teach cooking classes. Cristina Caparrós had studied Chemistry, but seeing that her parents, fishermen, were retiring without a successor, she took the helm of the family business, with the desire to make known the seafaring life, claiming that the world of fishing should not be masculinized. To begin with, women (xarxaires) were always the ones who made the nets (now retired fishermen do it). Without them, nothing would have been caught by any man at sea. Nor was the preparation of the best fish dishes in male hands. She founded Cap a Mar, which also organizes routes along the fishermen's pier, where twenty-three boats still go out to fish today.
From that suffering sea that also so much needs the actions of the SDGs, plastics are extracted among many other non-biodegradable wastes, in meticulously organized cleanups by marine biology groups and many volunteers. And with what is extracted, more and more new uses are being thought of so that materials that harm the planet do not have to be swallowed by either land or sea. With plastic bottles, new articles are created, useful for the home or decorative.
And with recycled pieces of old boat sails, toiletry bags, wallets, ribbons, and keychains are made, like those that Maite Guillem sells in her store BdeBarcelona. It was one of the first businesses in the city to obtain the Biosphere certificate, in 1917, and it is an example of sustainable awareness in a business, especially because it sells souvenirs of the city that have nothing to do with industrial souvenirs. Hers are the result of a careful selection of each of her suppliers. They are small artisans with workshops in the city or in Catalan towns, who pamper unique productions, in many cases made with recycled materials, which do not have to travel long distances to the final consumer. With old mattress fabric, they make bags, and with plastic scraps, earrings and pendants of the panot of the Barcelona flower modeled by taking advantage of leftover material that, in this way, shines and neither the earth nor the sea will have to digest it. BdeBarcelona is in this city a benchmark for creative recycling and local consumption of artisanal productions that dress the window display of number 28 of Gaudí Avenue.
The Modernist enclosure of Sant Pau
At the end of the same avenue, the Modernist Enclosure of Sant Pau can proudly boast the Biosphere distinction. Just for having embroidered the complete rehabilitation so respectful of history, it already deserves it. A history written by its architect, Lluís Domènech i Montaner ---whose centenary of his death is now being celebrated with a whole year of events in different spaces--- to all the healthcare personnel who worked in those spaces and patients who were born, admitted, or died in them.
The preservation of architectural heritage, in any city in the world, is a sublime act of sustainability. Kathrine Raleigh, who is the Head of Programs and Content for the venue, explains that they have had the certification since January 2017. "It has been renewed annually since that date. But the commitment to a quality, non-mass tourism model, linked to its environment, and compatible with the different uses of the heritage complex has been present since the moment the Venue opened to visitors. In fact, the Foundation participates in the United Nations Global Compact since 2015, and is an affiliated member of the World Tourism Organization". She also emphasizes that the rehabilitation project incorporated sustainability as a central objective, along with quality, energy efficiency, and state-of-the-art technology. They have, in fact, achieved six LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certifications from the US Green Building Council.
The preservation of architectural heritage, in any city in the world, is a sublime act of sustainabilityThe second element that stands out is the plan of complicities with the environment, which pays a lot of attention to the social return that generates its tourism and the cultural activity of the Modernist Enclosure. They offer specific services to schools, social entities, community and sports groups, and vulnerable groups in the city. "The cultural activity itself brings a high-quality cultural content offer to the local community and is committed to collaboration with local entities and artists. Likewise, it has participated every year since 2018 in the European Sustainable Development Week with a free admission day aimed at disseminating the SDGs with recreational and educational activities organized by organizations housed in the modernist pavilions, public entities, NGOs, and community groups in collaboration with the Foundation," comments Raleigh.
An environmental and energy management system with annual and biannual improvement objectives in diverse areas, such as energy consumption, paper consumption, green purchasing, CO2 footprint, waste management, and biodiversity, among others, have also made them worthy of the Biosphere. And they are currently working on several pilot projects related to promoting biodiversity (an insect hotel), saving water in irrigation, and measuring the CO2 footprint of events held at the Venue. They say that the certification encourages them to continue advancing with the continuous improvement process initiated years ago. "It also connects us with the set of certified entities as part of the Barcelona Biosphere Destination. Therefore, it represents an opportunity for us to learn, share experiences, and motivate each other. Furthermore, it is an internationally recognized seal, which is interesting from a commercial perspective," adds the head of programs at the venue.
Casa Amàlia 1950
Next to the Mercado de la Concepción, there is a restaurant where sustainability efforts have also become very evident. Facilitating work-life balance and hiring personnel from less favored groups, adopting energy efficiency measures in its facilities, and promoting the conservation of local cultural and natural heritage are part of the menu at Casa Amàlia 1950. Its market cuisine has traditional roots and live music can also be enjoyed, in a setting where everything aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals. That's why they have the approval of Biosphere. From number 14 of Passatge del Mercat, they also promote the adoption of healthier lifestyles and habits.
The list of freelancers and companies that are doing more every day for a more sustainable Barcelona is long: The Teatre Lliure, the Museu Picasso, the Llotja de Mar, the Palau Güell... have materialized their proposals and actions "to build a tourist community respectful of the environment, culture, and social and economic return", as pointed out by Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona.
The list of freelancers and companies that are doing more every day for a more sustainable Barcelona is long: The Teatre Lliure, the Museu Picasso, the Llotja de Mar, the Palau Güell...In this latest delivery of the international Biosphere certifications, the Barcelona Convention Bureau (BCB) has occurred the first convention bureau of the world to obtain this sustainability seal. This implies ---explain from Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona--- a series of good practices with which the BCB presents itself to collaborating companies in the MICE sector to transfer sustainability to business meetings.
And Destinació Barcelona, which includes Barcelona city and the three tourist brands of the province of Barcelona ---Costa Barcelona, Paisajes Barcelona and Pirineos Barcelona--- is the only Biosphere Platinum certified destination in the world. This highlights the promotion and impulse of sustainability, after the commitment initiated in 2011, when Barcelona was the first city in the world to be certified.
In the set of regions of the Barcelona demarcation, this year 931 companies have obtained the certification. From the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, they remind that in Barcelona the Biosphere certification does not represent any cost for the operator, since it is fully subsidized by the IEET (tourist tax), as well as the renewal in subsequent years.