Cities play a crucial role in addressing the climate emergency. They are spaces from which to generate innovative and transformative solutions to the global situation.
The central role of cities in the urgently needed decarbonization process is reflected in data provided by the website Netzerocities.eu. According to the website, cities consume more than 65% of global energy and account for more than 70% of global CO2 emissions. They also occupy only 4% of the land area of the European Union (EU) but host 75% of EU citizens.
In this context, Barcelona and six other Spanish cities were selected in 2022 to be part of the ‘European Mission 100 Smart and Climate-Neutral Cities by 2030’, a project promoted by the European Commission aimed at coordinating efforts to gather the necessary resources to address the continent’s major challenges.
As part of this mission, the Catalan capital and the other selected cities in Spain are deploying the URBANEW pilot program, which involves multiple actors to promote systemic transformation and the search for innovative solutions to urban regeneration and rehabilitation, reducing carbon footprint, and making buildings more energy efficient.
A form to propose innovative solutions in building rehabilitation
In Barcelona, the project is led by the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation of Barcelona (IMHAB), the 2030 Agenda area of the Barcelona City Council, and the municipal foundation BIT Habitat, and aims to deepen the study of a public-private collaboration model for the purchase and rehabilitation of buildings to convert them into affordable housing.
The central tasks of the URBANEW program are the identification of innovative and low-carbon building rehabilitation solutions, the design of a public-private collaboration model for purchase and rehabilitation, as well as the study of the economic viability of the proposals.
Currently, the program is in an initial phase, calling for the active participation of local stakeholders involved in regeneration. Therefore, a form has been made available to them where they can propose innovative and low-carbon building rehabilitation solutions. All proposals will be included in a catalog published in 2024.
Therefore, all actors in the building renovation ecosystem have the opportunity to contribute their innovative solutions to the catalog.
The most outstanding solutions will be presented at the URBANEW Conference
These solutions, focused on multi-family buildings between party walls and without the possibility of growth in façade or elevation, can impact various aspects such as energy savings and efficiency, circular economy and embedded carbon, adaptation and reduction of climate risk, health and comfort, as well as biodiversity and nature-based solutions, among others.
The best solutions will be presented within the framework of the ‘URBANEW. Innovating in Building Rehabilitation for Decarbonization’ conference, which will take place on April 10th and will bring together all the actors of the program. The event has been conceived as a technical conference to debate how innovation can be the driving force for promoting decarbonized rehabilitation of residential buildings.
As for the rest of the proposals, they will be selected to be part of the solutions catalog, which will serve as a technical consultation tool for the adoption of measures in favor of decarbonizing rehabilitation.
Objective: moving towards the decarbonization of urban environments
Based on the activities and mobilizations generated within the framework of the URBANEW program, in progress until June 2025, a comprehensive diagnosis is expected to be developed to better understand the barriers and levers to decarbonize the built environment and integrate renewable energies.
Along with Barcelona, the six Spanish cities deploying the program are Vitoria, Zaragoza, Seville, Madrid, Valencia, and Valladolid. All of them are mobilizing their local agents and carrying out joint actions in order to promote energy rehabilitation and the replacement of construction materials, fostering the use of local raw materials with a low carbon footprint and the deployment of renewable energies under self-consumption models and energy communities.
Later on, the program’s activities will be simultaneously tested in the seven cities, in different climatic and socioeconomic contexts. The lessons learned will be translated into the diagnosis, an instrument to advance in the decarbonization of urban environments.
All this is a further step in the efforts and leadership of cities to address climate change, an unprecedented challenge facing our societies and calling on all of us.