The Government is committed to positioning Spain as the spearhead of the energy transition, even if that means being greener than Brussels itself. Since this summer, the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda has redoubled the environmental requirements of public tenders for the operation and maintenance of roads and already requires that candidate companies seal the commitment to achieve carbon neutrality within five years of awarda milestone that the Twenty-seven established for 2050.
This is clear from the new environmental clauses that the portfolio led by Raquel Sánchez, through the General Directorate of Highways, has introduced in its latest tenders for the conservation, exploitation and works on the roads.
Builders and dealerships were on notice. Transport, which has not responded to this media’s questions at the time of going to press, has been working for months on the redesign and improvement of the national road infrastructure from various angles, always with sustainability as a backdrop. Among the department’s priorities has been to have reliable indicators related to energy consumption and polluting emissions generated by road transport, above all, within the framework of the international commitments acquired at the state level and the Sustainable Mobility Law, still in parliamentary process.
The most recent example of the green action led by Transport has been the approval, in the Council of Ministers last week, of a public tender for the execution of various road conservation and operation operations in the province of Segovia, for a estimated amount of more than 29 million euros.
In the tender documents for the Segovian roads, Transport has incorporated objectives for “compensation” for polluting emissions. In detail, candidate companies must take into account in their offers the calculation of the carbon footprint that they will generate during the execution of the contract in each section of the road network. Last July, the ministry included the same requirement in the tender for services for several Sevillian roads, worth almost 21 million.