The Public Society of Environmental Management of the Basque Government is celebrating its 40th anniversary today, Thursday, 26 January

Ihobe’s history is the result of a path of work shared with companies and public administrations to contribute to the environmental improvement and greater quality of life of Basque citizens. Throughout these 4 decades, Ihobe's activity has focused on improving the environment, integrating the environmental variable into Basque public policies to turn environmental sustainability into an element of competitiveness for Basque companies and promoting the sustainable development of the territory.

The Public Society of Environmental Management of the Basque Government has consolidated a mission and objectives that are confirmed in both qualitative and quantitative results. By way of example, in 2021 alone, Ihobe involved more than 500 companies and entities in the circular economy and climate change, mobilizing 70 million euros in the sectoral integration of environmental policy and reducing 148,627 tons of greenhouse gases, which allowed avoiding the dumping of 138,370 tons of waste and land and the recovery of 60.5 hectares of soil.

Most relevant milestones

Ihobe emerged in the midst of industrial restructuring of the Basque Country as a European reference in the field of decontamination and comprehensive soil management

Since its inception, Ihobe faced the serious problem of soil pollution in the Basque Country derived from its historical industrial activity in order to achieve the best and greatest recovery of our soils. This milestone made the public company of environmental management become one of the European agencies with the greatest theoretical and practical knowledge in this field. In the 1990s, Ihobe launched a major awareness-raising and promotion campaign among Basque companies and stakeholders to promote environmental certification processes. Ihobe then deployed the clean production service to companies, a path that began in 1996 and fostered a new culture in organizations, a foregoing concept of current environmental sustainability strategies in companies. The ISO 14001 standard was especially promoted through TaldeISO working groups and, nowadays, continues promoting certifications such as the European EMAS and the European Eco-label, as well as the Erronka Garbia methodology for the certification of sustainable events.

With the beginning of the new century, public society undertook the greatest work of environmental engineering to date in the Basque Country: the Argalario security cell, an infrastructure to respond to the serious problem of lindane, a legacy of our industrial past. From these projects Ihobe has consolidated as a European reference in the development of the required tools to solve the problem of soil decontamination through policies, guides, laws and advisory services. Proof of this is the new Basque Country Soil Protection Strategy 2030 which, based on a comprehensive approach, goes beyond the traditional vision of working on contaminated soils and becomes a pioneering initiative both in the Basque Country and in the State.

At the same time, Ihobe has also contributed to solve specific problems related to waste, through different infrastructures such as SOGECAR, Oleaz, which for years was the Official Center of Used Oil Analysis of the Basque Country, accredited with ISO 17025; and Recipilas, or facing the crisis caused by the sinking of the Prestige ship.

Hand in hand with municipalities and citizens

Already in 2002 Ihobe fomented the creation and implementation in the Basque Country of the Basque network of sustainable municipalities, designated back then Udalsarea 21 and now Udalsarea 2030. Almost 200 municipalities, counties and supra-municipal entities comprise this network, which includes 98% of the Basque population, aimed at boosting policies and sustainability action plans of local entities always aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals Among these policies, it is worth highlighting the green procurement and public hiring program that since 2008 pursues the development of environmental criteria constituting a technical reference in this area.

Ihobe's work in decision-making forums and environmental projects has consolidated the Basque Country's role in international networks such as ENCORE, Under2 Coalition and Regions4, which contributes to the recognition of the territory and the Basque Government as benchmarks in environmental sustainability.

With regard to citizenship, Ihobe is the entity in charge of managing the Ekoetxea network of environmental centers in the Basque Country, a cornerstone for raising public awareness with the aim of offering visitors experiences that help them live in a more sustainable manner. Ekoetxea Urdaibai, in Busturia (Bizkaia) was in 2007 the first centre in the network to which the centres of Txingundi and Azpeitia, in Gipuzkoa, and Meatzaldea, in Bizkaia, were subsequently added, pending the forthcoming accession of the new Salinas de Añana centre, Álava.

The Basque Country, at the forefront of circular economy and ecodesign

While Europe is moving towards circular models with more decisiveness and haste, the Basque Country has been familiar with these matters for years thanks to Ihobe's work. As early as 2003, Ihobe was the driving force behind the development of the first ecodesign standard (UNE 150301, now UNE-EN ISO 14006.) and its successful implementation among Basque companies. Subsequently, in 2011, he led the Basque Ecodesign Center initiative, the creation of the largest public-private alliance to design eco-innovative projects in circular economy and ecodesign, generate knowledge and drive the value chain of large Basque companies.

Since 2021, Ihobe has managed the Basque Country Basque Circular Hub´s advanced circular economy service centres which gather all the experience accumulated in two previous initiatives: the Ecodesign Classroom programme (2003-2014) and the Basque Ecodesign Hub (2015-2020). A reference in the State and in Southern Europe, Basque Circular Hub is a unique initiative for offering market prospecting services, advanced training, trend analysis and the generation of expert knowledge in the field of the circular economy.

Ihobe has continuously promoted eco-innovation among the Basque business sector, a commitment that has been rewarded by the recognition of the Basque Country as one of the most advanced European regions in this field.

The largest climate action project in the Basque Country

In the most recent history of Ihobe, public society is leading the largest European project of climate action for the Basque Country: Urban Klima 2050, co-financed by the LIFE Programme of the EU and launched in 2019 and involving 20 entities and about 20 million euros of budget.

The Climate Action area of Ihobe carries out an extensive work in the development of key tools for the integration of climate change in other instruments such as territorial planning. Ihobe has to its credit a long history where it stands out the annual elaboration since 2002 of the Basque Greenhouse Gas Inventory based on an improved calculation methodology and validated by the expert team of the United Nations.

In 2016 Ihobe began the elaboration of regionalized scenarios of climate change, which stand out for their high spatial and time resolution. These scenarios have been key for the elaboration of other tools such as municipal vulnerability and risk indexes, among others.

At the same time, studies related to sea level rise and coastal risk have been developed that,, like Kostaegoki identify the risk to the population, the natural environment, beaches and resources by modelling the spread of waves and flooding, together with other tools and devices to estimate the carbon footprint for organizations and citizens, municipal inventories or the guide for preparing climate and energy plans.

Ihobe, people committed to the environmental improvement of the Basque Country

The public company adhered to the Department of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment of the Basque Government is preparing to face in 2023 a new stage as Basque Environmental Agency

Ihobe, as a public environmental management company of the Basque Government, is in a unique position by integrating into a department that promotes the economic policy and competitiveness of the main economic sectors of the Basque Country. In addition to this situation, there is the need to promote in the Basque Country a recovery based on European policies derived from the Green Pact, which include a good part of the work areas of the last years of this public society, such as the circular economy, climate change, soil protection and biodiversity.

Ihobe's staff consists of 74 people - 50 women and 24 men - the average age is 44 years, and 78% have a higher degree. At present, Ihobe faces new challenges in this new age for environmental management: “During this year, new advances are expected in the processing of the law on energy transition and climate change, which, after its approval, will lead to the conversion of Ihobe into the new Basque Environment Agency called to undertake new challenges to guarantee sustainable development in the midst of a climate emergency,” stressed Alexander Boto Bastegieta in his speech on the occasion of the celebration of Ihobe's 40th anniversary.