Companies, universities, foundations, public institutions, entrepreneurs, and citizens of Barcelona and its area of influence will work together to turn the city into a global benchmark in social and business transformation, to promote a more prosperous, sustainable, and inclusive city, and in contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the local level.
This is the basis of the public-private initiative Barcelona+B, which has just been launched by the Barcelona City Council, through Barcelona Activa, and in collaboration with the pharmaceutical group Ferrer, EADA Business School, and B Lab Spain. The action has an initial investment of 370,000 euros, which is expected to increase as other social and economic actors join the proposal.
The project is part of the Ciudades+B program, a global initiative already shared by the cities of Edinburgh (United Kingdom), Santiago (Chile), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and Mendoza (Argentina). Ciudades+B aims to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and all actors to improve the cities where they live.
In Barcelona, initially, 1,500 companies will be mobilized over the next two years with their participation in an Impact Introduction Campus, which is part of the Barcelona Impact Lab program. This is a training proposal that will allow companies to measure their social and environmental impact by evaluating the actions they carry out and, once validated, develop an improvement plan to deepen them or expand their scope and incorporate others.
Elena Damià, director of Barcelona+B, explained to The New Barcelona Post that ---through participation in the Barcelona Impact Lab program--- companies will integrate sustainability management and improve their triple impact: economic, social, and environmental. The campuses will be held until the end of 2023 with the participation of about fifty companies in each training course, either at EADA or Barcelona Activa, but also at entities that already collaborate with Barcelona+B, such as the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce.
The courses are aimed at SMEs and large corporations in the province of Barcelona, but are also open to the business fabric of all Catalonia. The starting point will be a participatory day that will be held on May 3 at EADA Business School, "because cooperation and sharing experiences of the different actors based on trust and quality is essential to make Barcelona a global center for the business transition towards sustainability," highlighted Federica Massa-Saluzzo, professor of strategy and director of master's degrees in sustainability at EADA.
"We want to foster collaboration to generate solutions to our challenges as a city and stimulate companies on the one hand, but in a second phase, Barcelona+B will also awaken citizen participation to achieve their involvement," Damià stated and specified that "this second phase is still a very incipient project, although we have in mind to try to ensure that the projects derived from the citizen consultation that we could carry out end up being implemented."
Ferrer, the business 'partner'
In the business sphere, Barcelona+B has the leadership of the pharmaceutical laboratory Ferrer, which, from its experience as a BCorp company, contributes to having a positive impact on its workers, society in general, and the planet. During the presentation of Barcelona+B, the CEO of the company, Mario Rovirosa, explained how ensuring the well-being of workers, caring for environmental sustainability with the aim of making the planet a place to live, and combating social inequalities is fundamental to the strategic axes of the Ferrer group.
Rovirosa has mentioned some of the projects that the company carries out, and to which it allocates 50% of its profits. Specifically, in 2020, 6.5 million euros were allocated. Among those cited, he highlighted the program Educación Primaria musical (Musical Primary Education), which organizes music classes in schools in vulnerable neighborhoods, with musical instruments and all kinds of resources so that children from any background have access to musical learning. He also spoke about Ferrer for Food, a social kitchen located in Vilassar de Dalt that helps people in vulnerable situations by providing them with complete and healthy meals distributed through social entities. This initiative is complemented by the project Green for Good, which creates urban gardens cared for by people at risk of exclusion, who deliver the harvests to the social kitchen in Vilassar.
The presentation of Barcelona+B also featured an international testimony from Anette Richardson, Former Senior Advisor of the UN Office for Partnerships, who delved into the commitment that, with this initiative, Barcelona achieves towards transformation and sustainability. "Barcelona and its stakeholders and partners must continue inventing, developing, and launching countless new ideas and solutions to leave no one behind. If we want to be successful, we must turn global goals into local actions and opportunities," she explained. She also insisted on the need to "build strong alliances and partnerships if we want to guarantee a better future for citizens and design a model with aspirations that other cities also want to adopt."