Santa Coloma de Gramenet Council (Barcelona) has renewed its confidence in FCC Medio Ambiente (the Spanish brand for FCC Environment)and awarded it lot 1 of the service for cleaning and maintaining parks, gardens, street furniture, children's toys and phytosanitary treatment. The four year contract has a total value of more than €7.4 million.

FCC has been caring for the green areas in Santa Coloma de Gramenet since 2002 and this is the third renewal achieved by the company.

Santa Coloma de Gramenet is part of Barcelona’s metropolitan area and has a population of 117,000. The lot awarded covers an area of 400,000 m2 of green areas and 10,000 trees in streets, parks and municipal facilities. Tree pruning is carried out with permanent teams whose tasks will be allocated throughout the year. The service also includes the maintenance of civil works in parks and the street furniture and wastepaper bins throughout the city.

To carry out these services, FCC will have a staff of 50 employees, an increase of 22% over the previous contract. Up to 10% of the new contracting will be of workers at risk of social exclusion or with some type of disability, who will be contracted directly or through agreements with special employment centres (CETs).

This is in line with the framework of FCC's social commitment to communities in which it provides services, improving the employment insertion and social integration of groups in a situation of vulnerability and with difficulties for accessing employment.

Regarding the physical means, the company will acquire 22 vehicles and will for the first time introduce electric vehicles and machinery, including five Renault Kangoo Maxi vans and a Piaggio Porter auxiliary vehicle as well as power saws, weeding machines and leaf blowers.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) will play an important part in this contract. On the one hand, the VISION computer platform, developed exclusively by FCC Medio Ambiente, will be implemented for the integrated management of the services.

Supported by this platform, an inventory will be taken of the green spaces in the city and an app will be activated to record incidents. On the other, the remote management of the irrigation network, started in the previous contract, will be consolidated to reach 100% of the system.