Sustainable Food

Barcelona City Council, in collaboration with the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan (PEMB), today presented the 2030 Barcelona Healthy and Sustainable Food Strategy (EASSB2030). The event, chaired by the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, was also attended by Montserrat Ballarín, the Councillor for Commerce, Markets and Consumption, and Álvaro Porro, the Commissioner for Social Economy, Local Development and Food Policy.

The document is the outcome of a wide-ranging participatory process, with representatives from many of the stakeholders involved in the food system. It is a shared road map for the next 8 years for the city’s food policies. This means the City Council and all the other stakeholders playing a part. It contains the vision, goals, lines of action and some examples of projects that must guide the transformation of the city’s food system in the immediate and long-term future.

The idea is for this strategy to serve as a basis for developing short-term action plans whose content is implemented by the stakeholders, who adopt the strategy as the framework of a shared vision.

Barcelona’s new food system: 9 goals to achieve

The main goal of the strategy is to obtain food system with more sustainable types of production and consumption, as well as healthier diets. A transparent, participative, resilient and safe food system with fair and equitable relationships, inspired by agroecology, which tackles the climate emergency and the extinction crisis while also preventing food loss and waste.

We want everyone to have access to healthy, organic, seasonal and local food that involves sustainable fishing, guaranteeing animal welfare and prioritising distribution through shorter, fairer and more balanced food chains. We also want the food system to include aware and empowered consumers.

For these reasons, the document establishes 9 goals that will be achieved through 54 lines of action and 265 initiatives.

The goals are:

1. To increase the production, sale and consumption of seasonal, local and organic food, involving sustainable fishing and animal welfare, in addition to distribution in shorter, fairer and more balanced food chains.
2. To protect, recover and promote urban and peri-urban agricultural areas.
3. To promote healthy, sustainable food for all.
4. To increase the resilience of the food system and guarantee the right to healthy, sustainable nutrition.
5. To prevent food loss and waste.
6. To combat the climate emergency and the extinction crisis.
7. To promote a cultural and educational shift towards sustainable food.
8. To promote and foster fair relations in the food chain.
9. To coordinate and mobilise stakeholders in the food system to carry out specific and measurable actions linked to existing strategies

Quantitative proposals to be achieved by 2030

To be able to quantify the impact of the initiatives and as monitoring indicators, Barcelona City Council is considering a total of 11 proposals to be developed between now and 2030. These proposals are:

1. 100% alignment of municipal public procurement with sustainable food, inspired by the planetary health diet.
2. Starting from the current figure of 20%, to foster an increase in the percentage of city residents who regularly consume locally sourced produce to 40%.
3. Starting from the current figure of 14.5%, to foster an increase in the percentage of city residents who regularly consume organic produce to 30%.
4. To collaborate with the key stakeholders in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area to increase the percentage of agricultural land to 13-15%, starting from the current figure of 9.3%.
5. To mobilise the key stakeholders in the Province of Barcelona to increase the percentage of agricultural land dedicated to organic production to at least 25%, starting from the current figure of 12%.
6. To contribute to increasing the percentage of the population of the City of Barcelona that follows the planetary health diet to 23%, starting from the current figure of 9%.
7. To work towards reducing the percentage of obesity in the City of Barcelona to 12%, compared to the current figure of 15.4%, including specific initiatives in the highest-priority neighbourhoods.
8. To mobilise stakeholders to introduce changes in dining-room menus in 75% of the city’s state-run and subsidised infant and primary schools, under the criteria of healthy, sustainable food.
9. To work towards eliminating food insecurity in the City of Barcelona, in the knowledge that this problem affected 8.6% of the population in 2016.
10. To reduce food loss and waste in the City of Barcelona by 50%, compared to the data for 2015.
11. To foster a reduction in the carbon footprint of food in the City of Barcelona by 15%, compared to the data for 2021.

An agreed strategy among the various stakeholders involved in the food system

This road map is the outcome of a wide-ranging participatory process in which representatives from the various stakeholders involved in the system took part, enabling an agreement on the document to be reached. The idea is to guide and give greater visibility to the actions of all the stakeholders who wish to contribute to the transformation of the food system, and to offer a space for forging alliances and facilitating cooperation between stakeholders and projects.

These stakeholders included public administrations, the private sector, the world of academia and research, the general public and their organisations, and the media, as well as various sectors (health, the environment, social justice, culture, the economy) and stages of the food chain (from the field to the plate).

A total of 1,053 people took part in producing the EASSB2030, between November 2021 and July 2022. 23 working sessions were organised, with the participation of 198 people and 112 organisations linked to the food system. The online citizen consultation attracted 834 contributions.

Furthermore, 25 people in the area of farming and 16 from the world of academia and research took part in the working sessions for drafting the strategy. 76.9% of the people who contributed to this strategy were women. Last, an inter-administration session was held, with the participation of the Government of Catalonia, the Barcelona Metropolitan Area and Catalonia’s four Provincial Councils.

Barcelona makes progress in its commitment to tackling the climate emergency

With this Food Strategy, the city strengthens its commitment to sustainable food as a strategy for tackling the climate emergency and consolidates it over time.

To ensure there is continuity and as proof of the City Council’s firm commitment stemming from its city’s world capital status, an annual budget is being established along with a specific Barcelona City Council department. A series of specialised technical references will also be set out to work towards sustainable food in strategic bodies such as the Barcelona Education Consortium, the Municipal Markets Institute, Mercabarna and the Barcelona Public Health Agency, as well as the Catalan Government and Barcelona Metropolitan Area’s usual collaboration instruments.

This initiative is part of the project developed by the city as World Capital of Sustainable Food in 2021 and is one of its legacies.