Barcelona launches an office to promote sustainable procurement

The initiative seeks to bring local businesses a way of contracting that is more aligned with the city’s current challenges. It is not only about choosing suppliers, but also about taking into account the impact they generate: employment, equality, sustainability, proximity, labour rights or lower emissions.

The office will provide advice to small and medium-sized enterprises, self-employed professionals and other economic actors who want to improve their contracting practices. It will also guide those who wish to bid for municipal tenders and do not always know how to enter that system.

One objective is to make it easier for more local businesses to access public contracts. For many small businesses, municipal procurement can seem like a complex area, full of technical and administrative requirements. The new service aims to reduce that distance.

The project is promoted by the City Council’s Directorate for the Coordination of Administrative Procurement and Barcelona Activa. The combination seeks to bring together legal and administrative knowledge with business support, a key element in ensuring that SMEs are not left out through lack of information or resources.

The criteria to be strengthened range from decarbonisation to gender equality, including the labour-market inclusion of vulnerable groups, the local economy, innovation, an intercultural perspective, human and labour rights, and the promotion of the local language.

The office will also work internally within the City Council. Municipal teams preparing public tenders will receive training to integrate these criteria more effectively from the outset, rather than as a last-minute addition.

The volume of public procurement explains the importance of the change. In 2024, Barcelona City Council handled 1,790 million euros in municipal procurement, spread across 38,745 contracts. This is an amount capable of influencing the city’s economic fabric if it is directed according to strategic criteria.

For an SME, this may translate into new opportunities. For the city, it is a way of using public spending as a lever to support more responsible businesses, quality employment and services with a lower environmental impact.

Barcelona also wants to reinforce its European profile in this field. From 16 to 19 February 2027, the city will host the Procura+ Conference, one of the leading gatherings on sustainable, circular and innovative public procurement.

The conference will be held in venues such as Fabra i Coats and the Museu Marítim, and will mark Barcelona’s return to a European network where public administrations, experts and businesses share experiences on how to buy better through the public sector.

The Oficina de Contractació Estratègica will not by itself change the local economy, but it can help many businesses better understand how to compete, which criteria carry increasing weight and what opportunities open up when sustainability stops being rhetoric and enters contracts.

In a city where SMEs and self-employed people sustain a large part of daily activity, the challenge will be to ensure that this service does not remain a tool for specialists. Its real value will depend on whether it manages to reach shops, suppliers, cooperatives, service companies and professionals who want to work with the administration without getting lost along the way.