The research group Sostenibilitat i Prevenció Ambiental—SosteniPrA (Sustainability and Environmental Prevention) runs projects in an emerging area: tools for sustainability and environmental prevention. It works within the area of life-cycle analysis, eco-design, eco-efficiency, industrial ecology, and the analysis of material and energy flows applied to industrial, urban and agricultural systems. The group works at the level of the process and also at a local, regional and national level and applies its work in priority areas such as biomass and codes of good conduct in agriculture, the chemical industry, waste-value, the improvement of urban systems and industrial products and green procurement in public institutions and services.
The group carries out its work in four complementary and cross-disciplinary ways: research; innovation and knowledge transfer; education (the group participates in the Environmental Studies Official Master course and the Joint European Master programme in Environmental Studies); and the diffusion of information through articles in the scientific and popular press, magazines and journals.

One of the most recent projects has been to apply eco-design to street furniture. The aim of eco-design is to build environmental criteria into the design of a product, system or service. A product's life-time starts with its design and it is at this stage that its functional, aesthetic and ergonomic characteristics are defined, along with its cost, the manufacturing process to be employed as well as, crucially, a large part of its environmental impact. To better identify the characteristics that need improving from an environmental point of view, eco-design employs Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to determine the environmental impact of every stage in a product's life cycle that needs to be eco-designed. Life Cycle Analysis is an objective process to evaluate environmental impact by means of identifying and quantifying the energy, materials and emissions into the environment caused by any given item and identifying and implementing improvements that benefit the environment.
One of the prototypes to emerge from the project is the PAL eco-bicycle parking post. The PAL is a single post with an elliptical section with four holes enabling two bicycles to be chained to it. It is made from recycled plastic thereby avoiding the processing of virgin materials. Its surface is textured with longitudinal grooves making it difficult to fix sticky labels to it or deface it with graffiti, thereby reducing maintenance. The same design, but without the holes, has been proposed for use as a bollard.

The Farola Viva (Live Streetlamp) and the la Biblioteca Mòbil BM'06 ( Mobile Library) are two further examples of the various eco-designs which SosteniPrA has been working on recently.
The Farola Viva is an autonomous photovoltaic lamp some 3.5m tall made from expanded steel mesh. The upper part contains a solar panel that feeds the highly efficient LED lamp. Buried in the base of the lamp are the batteries for the photovoltaic system. The footing, made from recycled concrete, can be extracted and reused when the lamp is removed.
The Biblioteca Mòbil BM'06 is a mini mobile library contained within a prismatic volume the capacity of which can be greatly increased by unfolding its side panels. It is an autonomous unit powered by a photovoltaic system.