BARCELONA CITY COUNCIL, Spain

Barcelona City Council has long been committed to sustainability since the 1990s. They introduced a Sustainable City Council (SCC) programme in 2009 as part of their Agenda 21. As well as making the city more sustainable, this included reducing their own social and environmental impact and publicising information that will help others to do the same.

They established a Green Office Programme which included a variety of activities. Many of these were focussed on reducing the use of paper, estimated in 2006 to be about 60% of the waste generated. This included switching to electronic systems for note-taking, reports and Christmas cards and promoting double sided printing using stickers on photocopiers (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2006). Further information focussed specifically on paper is available in best practice on minimising consumption of paper and consumables. 

A robust recycling infrastructure has been introduced including paper, packaging, glass and residual waste streams as well as toner cartridges. Appropriate bins are placed strategically e.g. next to coffee machines. Specially designed boxes were made available for individual workstations to collect waste paper for reuse. A toner recycling service is available, which also allows staff to recycle toners brought in from home. Computers, photocopies and other office machines that are no longer required but still usable are donated to charity. In the year 2000, 407 computers were donated to NGOs (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2000).

Dissemination of information to council staff is assured by educational guides, posters throughout the offices e.g. promoting the use of recycling bins, and face to face. The latter includes training tailored to the specific audience and information desks at building entries publicising information, advice, forthcoming activities and other news around the Green Office Programme – for example at the Coll Civic Centre (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2006).  

An appealing Green Office Guide designed specifically for the staff at the Council was produced in 2000 and distributed to 12,000 staff. It provides advice on a variety of sustainability themes including waste minimisation. It recommends actions including: 

•        Placing a box next to each workstation to collect paper for reuse (i.e. with a blank side)

•        Avoiding products made of mixed materials e.g. plastic covering on paper file, to facilitate segregation at end of life

•        Avoiding individually packaged products

•        Where possible, avoiding procurement of supplies which contain toxic substances (e.g. solvent based glues)

•        Choosing refillable products

•        Choosing quality non-consumable products (e.g. pencil sharpeners, scissors, trays) which will therefore have an extended life

•        New toners and ink cartridges can only be obtained by handing in an old one

Recycling figures for Barcelona council offices are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Recycling figures for council offices (Ajuntament de Barcelona, nd)