News
• The public-private project between Aigües de Barcelona, Gavà City Council and Cetaqua, has won the gold in the Governance, Institutions and Social Business category of the IWA Project Innovation Awards.
Denmark is hosting this week the edition of the IWA (International Water Association) World Water Congress & Exibition 2022 under the theme ‘Water for smart liveable cities’. For six days, more than 10,000 professionals from the sector from more than 100 countries have come together to discuss the future of sustainable water management and explore new smart ways to achieve “livable cities”, with digitization as the main axis.
Throughout these days, solutions have been explored to achieve smart, holistic and habitable cities that will make it possible to face climate change and improve people’s quality of life and well-being.
In this sense, the Gavà Circular project, led by Cetaqua, has been recognized by the organization as the best project in the Governance, Institutions and Social Enterprise category, obtaining gold.
In the words of the mayoress of Gavà, Gemma Badia, “this award shows that we are on the right path to continue betting on a model of recovery, reuse and savings that leads to sustainability. I value the good work done by the City Council, Cetaqua and Aigües de Barcelona to make it possible for Gavà to be chosen with this gold award out of the 200 candidatures from 52 different countries”.
For his part, Carlos Montero, CEO of Cetaqua, pointed out that “it is an honor to receive this recognition, the result of Cetaqua’s commitment to promoting circularity and the commitment of Aigües de Barcelona and the Gavà City Council, who share with us the sustainability values. It is an example of contribution to sustainable development through the application of the principles of the Circular Economy. For this we have defined a methodology and we have applied it to a specific territory, in a continuous way, demonstrating that it brings benefits to the citizenry. We trust that it will be a reference for more entities to collaborate in implementing circularity solutions and thus generate much more sustainable economic cycles”.
“From Aigües de Barcelona, we are pleased to receive this recognition from the International Water Association (IWA) which endorses our commitment to promote the circular economy in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, promoting smart, sustainable and resilient cities and acting in the face of emergencies climate. And all this always from alliances and innovation, as engines of the transformation of cities”, pointed out Rubén Ruiz, general director of Aigües de Barcelona.
The project “Circular Gavà: Heading towards the implementation of circular opportunities in the territory” competed with more than 200 applications from 52 countries, among which it was selected by a panel of expert judges for its potential to create a culture based on development sustainable through the implementation and execution of 3 actions identified for the “water-energy-waste” flows.
“We are delighted to receive this recognition of the hard work behind the scenes that goes into advancing a tangible circular economy in a context of public-private collaboration. We hope that this will serve as an example for more entities to collaborate to generalize the implementation of solutions to transform waste into value”, pointed out Yago Lorenzo, technical manager of the Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability area at Cetaqua.
The most tangible action of the project, the result of the public-private collaboration between the Gavà City Council, Aigües de Barcelona and Cetaqua, has been the construction and start-up of an intelligent groundwater recharge point for irrigation and cleaning of the streets, known under the name of Recaigua.
Gavà Circular has made it possible not only to promote the circular economy in the municipality, but has also created a culture based on sustainable development in which actions are carried out to guarantee the growth, sustainability and resilience of the territories through two initiatives: the creation of an innovation pole known as “HUB ECCUS – Circular Economy and Sustainable Urban Cities”, to support and promote the transition towards a circular economy; and the participation of the cities of Gavà and Castelldefels in the international Intelligent Cities Challenge network promoted by the European Commission.
These initiatives have also generated the implementation of a new two-year public-private collaboration agreement within the framework of the Circular Data-Driven Cities project.