The city has 14.89 square kilometers with 60.104 inhabitants (01/01/2015). It is one of the medium sized cities comprising the second metropolitan crown and is located approximately 30 kilometers from Barcelona surrounded by an extensive road and train communications network.
The experience of Granollers in the field of energy efficiency goes back to 1999, when the municipality approved the Local 21 Agenda, with some actions addressed to adopt and facilitate the efficient use of energy resources and foster rational consumption and local production with renewable energy. Afterwards, the city approved economic incentives to promote solar installations (PV and thermal) at the private sector, and a local solar ordinance (2003). Granollers has been focused on improving the energy management of public buildings and services for many years measuring consumption and implementing eco-efficiency measures in many of the public buildings.
Granollers city council is part of the “Spanish Network of Cities for Climate” since its beginning, back in 2005, and was one of the first cities in Barcelona province signing the “Covenant of Mayors on Climate Change”( July 2008). According to the Covenant of Mayors commitments, in July 2009, the city had developed and approved its Sustainable Energy Action Plan 2009-2020 to achieve the European objectives of 20-20-20 in 2020. The city council has designated the Environment Service to follow this Action Plan 2009-2020, but there are other services and departments in the municipal organization involved in its implementation, such as Maintenance, Projects and constructions and Strategic planning and knowledge departments.
Furthermore, on 16th October 2014, the Mayor of Granollers signed the adhesion to “Mayors Adapt” initiative of DG for Climate Action of EC, in the framework of "Covenant of Mayors“. Last summer 2015, with the support of the Provincial Government of Barcelona, Granollers has started working on defining scenarios and future strategies concerning how to adapt the town to climate change.