In 2020, Spain’s CO2 emissions fell by 18% year-on-year . The cause of this fall was, obviously, covid-19 and the multiple restrictions on economic, social and mobility activity that were implemented to appease the pandemic. The reduction of greenhouse gases was one of the few positive notes left last year and meant that Spain returned to records prior to 1990 in terms of pollution.

Are we facing a temporary event or is it a trend that will continue? It is quite evident that the collapse in emissions would not have occurred without the outbreak of the coronavirus . However, it does seem that the pandemic has had a certain effect in raising awareness about the importance of caring for the environment.

Citizens, large corporations, Administration, SMEs and the self-employed… They all play an important role in the fight against climate change. And to encourage and recognize the work in this area carried out by the last two mentioned actors, BBVA and the Fundació Antigues Caixes Catalanes launched in 2019 the BBVA Award for Environmental Innovation for SMEs and the Self-Employed , of which the Awards ceremony for the second edition at the Sant Pau Modernist Campus in collaboration with EL PERIÓDICO .

THE NEWSPAPER
“We understand sustainability as a matter of urgency. The next 10 years will be vital to carry out the profound transformation that the planet needs ”, said Toni Ballabriga , global business director responsible for BBVA .

“As a financial entity,” continued Ballabriga, “we have the duty to accompany companies and society as a whole to achieve the transition towards sustainability, both by providing financial solutions and advice, and by getting involved in collective challenges.”

For his part, Jaume Ribera , president of the Fundació Antigues Caixes Catalanes , highlighted that this award is about “encouraging companies to bet on innovation and sustainability”. “We must become aware of the importance of taking action now in all the activities we carry out in our day to day,” Ribera said.

The Administration was also represented at the event, in this case through the acting ‘Minister’ of Territori and Sustainability, Damià Calvet . “To combat the climate emergency, we must develop mainly in three aspects: the circular economy, sustainable mobility and the energy transition. We all have to be determined to achieve them and from the Administration we must create the conditions so that it is possible ”.

The ‘minister’ also pointed out that to overcome this challenge “an alliance between the private sector and the institutions” is necessary and stressed that the BBVA Award for Environmental Innovation for SMEs and Self-Employed is “a good example of this alliance.”

Four finalists and two winners

After the parliaments, the awards ceremony proceeded. In total, 36 projects were presented by SMEs and freelancers based in Catalonia that have developed a sustainable project or process from which two winners were chosen. Shotl , a start-up that has developed a solution for transport operators and municipalities to make better use of their bus fleets by implementing an on-demand service, and Oimo , an eco-design firm that develops new types of biodegradable packaging sustainable, were the two finalists who failed to win the award.

The second prize was awarded to the Cargobici company , which will receive an endowment of 5,000 euros, for being a company that offers logistics solutions to face the last mile in a more ecological way. The firm is the exclusive distributor and technical service for XYZ CARGO cargo bikes in Spain and Portugal and is also involved in urban distribution projects for composting goods that allow waste to be converted into a resource.

In this case, the jury valued its status as a “sustainable and replicable initiative, which offers logistics solutions and encourages local trade and sustainable mobility of goods in small and large cities, reducing emissions and adding value to current times”.

Finally, the winner of the first prize, endowed with 10,000, was announced. The winner was The Predective Company (TPC), of which the jury highlighted “its especially innovative project, with clear environmental benefits that allow reducing C02 and supplying energy and economic savings for users, replicable in all types of commercial buildings and born of university research “.

Alonzo Romero, CEO of TPC, was commissioned to go on stage to receive the award from Toni Ballabriga and deliver a brief speech. “The economic part is always very important for a start-up, but what we appreciate the most is the symbolic value it has. It helps us not to feel alone and to know that there are people who support us ”, proclaimed the entrepreneur.

Spain and France have again asked this Friday in the framework of the Eurogroup meeting for “agility” in the approval of recovery plans and that the disbursement of the first funds take place before the end of July .

Both the economic vice president of the Government, Nadia Calviño , and her French counterpart, Bruno Le Maire , consider that this is the main short-term priority for the euro zone: to approve the national plans and that the Twenty-seven ratify the own resources decision that it will allow the European Commission to borrow on the markets.

“This has to be our priority and what we all have to do is row in that direction,” Calviño reminded the rest of his colleagues, who has also downplayed the letter sent by the European Commission to Spain asking for technical clarifications on the Spanish plan because “it is probably the one that needs the least additional clarification for its completion”.

This is the first physical meeting held by the EU finance and economy ministers since the informal meeting held in Berlin in September last year.

A sign “of change” , according to the minister, which confirms the entry into a new phase of recovery in which Spain will be one of the countries with the most intense growth forecast and “one of the growth engines of the euro zone starting this year ”.

His balance is that “the correct measures” have been taken to protect the productive fabric, guarantee financial stability and employment and that thanks to the battery of coordinated measures adopted at the European level, Spain can recover the levels of pre-pandemic growth “in less than three years ”compared to the more than 10 it took to get out of the financial crisis.

Support measures
Despite this positive message, the Eurogroup has once again sent a signal of caution on the withdrawal of measures to support the economy. “The recovery is taking hold but the challenges remain great and the risk of damage from the pandemic in our societies remains very real, so much remains to be done,” summarized its president, Paschal Donohoe .

“We have to be very careful not to withdraw support from our workers and companies too quickly. It will be essential to carefully allocate the transition towards more selective support measures ”, added the Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni , who will present a proposal on the fiscal guidelines for 2022 on June 2.

The meeting in Lisbon was also attended by the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde , who has warned that measures to support the economy will continue to be necessary in the coming months due to the many uncertainties that still surround a recovery that is taking place. he sees “uncertain” and that it will be “uneven” between countries and sectors.

In this sense, it has considered it “premature and unnecessary” to start discussing the possibility of reducing the emergency purchasing program (PEPP) launched by the pandemic and which will continue until March 2022.

“We believe that, given the uncertainty we face and the divergences that we will see, coordinated policies will continue to be necessary in the coming months to ensure that the recovery is on track,” he explained. Lagarde also pointed out that the increase in the Inflation that is occurring in 2021 is temporary in nature and that in 2022 the level will fall again to lower levels.

The Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona invokes the participation of ‘start-ups’ in BNEW. Open the call for the Barcelona Start-up Innovation Hub, which will be held between October 5 and 8.

The Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona ( CZFB ) has opened this Monday the call of the Barcelona Start-up Innovation Hub to seek ‘start-ups’ that “revolutionize” sectors in the fields of logistics, real estate, ‘e-commerce’, industry digital, economic zones, mobility, science, talent and sustainability.

The call is part of the organization of the second edition of the Barcelona New Economy Week ( BNEW ), a hybrid B2B event that will be held between October 5 and 8, the CZFB reported in a statement.

The special delegate of the State in the CZFB, Pere Navarro , has assured that the BNEW is “a unique opportunity for companies that are starting to promote their growth” and that, in addition, it gives the possibility of finding solutions that represent a revolution – in his words – in the development of the new economy.

In collaboration with La Salle Technova Barcelona , the CZFB thus encourages the participation of companies from any part of the world that have been created in the last three years and whose activity fits within the aforementioned sectors, present at BNEW.

The first eight companies in each sector will be able to register at no cost and the rest will have a reduced participation cost, and the objective of the initiative is “to give them the opportunity to be part of an innovation environment, with multiple opportunities to create synergies. and business generation “.

They will do so through the BVillage tool, a space with a “high component of artificial intelligence”, with which companies will be able to show their products and services and hold videoconference meetings with attendees from anywhere in the world.

The Government has presented this Monday a new degree of professional training (FP) of “high level” to instruct customized professionals with which to nurture the digital hubs and the Catalan start-up sector .

The initiative is endowed with 1.75 million euros to constitute a pilot program with which to train a total of 540 peoplein its first edition. The course will be free for students, who must previously have a university degree.

These will be able to register as of September of this year in any of the seven modalities and women and the unemployed will have priority. The training will have a maximum duration of 300 hours; as explained by the promoters of the Barcelona Digital Talent public-private alliance.

The concept, described as a pioneer by the representatives of the Government, is to knock on the door of companies in the digital sector and make them a tailored and formal suit the profile they ask for.

According to data from the Catalan administration, the demand for digital professionals has increased by 80% in the last two years, while the offer has only increased by 23%. That is, there is a lack of web developers, programmers, data analysts and various ‘techies’.

And the Government has moved tab to put them and thus encourage more technological projects to be installed or continue to grow in Catalonia. Promoting the growth of the digital sector is one of the priorities that the Catalan administration has been cultivating in recent years. As a sample, one in three euros that the public agency ACCIÓ captured from foreign investments in 2020 came from digital signatures.

The objective is to satisfy the demand for labor at the ‘hubs’ of firms such as Novartis or Zurich and at the 1,500 ‘start-ups’ currently operating in Catalonia; as well as diverse companies that to accelerate their digitization look for new profiles.

The money will be provided by the Generalitat, specifically the SOC through EU training funds, and the management will be private. This June the Catalan administration will open a public competition for code academies, universities or high-level training centers to apply to offer these courses.

When are registrations open?
Once the training centers win the tenders, the Generalitat’s forecast is that students can register as of September. The purpose of the public investment of those 1.75 million euros also seeks that it has a direct return to reduce the high unemployment rates registered in Catalonia.

Specifically, it aims to cover that 8.6% of those enrolled in the SOC as unemployed and who have university studies. The 70% of prospective candidates must be unemployed and reserves the remaining 30% for working professionals.

Likewise, the SOC aims to promote the training of women in the sector, to reduce the high masculinization existing in the union. That is why a minimum of 40% of the 540 places will be reserved for women.

The contents will come pre-designed jointly by the technicians of the Labor, Digital Policies and Business departments, who have previously surveyed the Catalan tech sector to adjust their courses. And their success relies, in large part, on that high connectivity with the labor market. “It is a training radically oriented to the needs of companies,” said Jordi Arrufí , director of the Digital Talent program at Mobile World Capital Barcelona .

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez , has advocated for a new social contract that allows combating inequalities and for which greater tax justice will be necessary , including the end of tax havens and downward international competition in tax matters , which has deprived governments of the resources necessary to finance investments essential to face crises such as the one posed by the pandemic.

” There is no social justice if there is no tax justice and fair and progressive taxes are essential to maintain public services,” Sánchez defended in his speech at the IV CEAPI Ibero-American Congress for company leaders and business families.

In this sense, the Spanish president has claimed to avoid the fiscal dump in certain sectors linked to new technologies , which have been reinforced during the current crisis, in addition to “putting an end not only to tax havens, but also to competition from the drop in global taxation “.

“The recovery must be fair, promoting a new social contract that allows a more inclusive economic model,” defended Sánchez, who has warned of the risk that Latin America and the Caribbean lose decades of development due to the pandemic.

In this regard, he highlighted that Spain and other Ibero-American partners have appealed to international financial institutions and development banks to take into account the unique situation of the region’s economies, especially those of middle income.

New instruments
“We believe that international institutions and development banks should create new instruments or adapt existing ones,” said the Spanish president, highlighting that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has opened an opportunity with the new allocation of its special drawing rights (SDR).

Thus, Spain with its Latin American partners has proposed the creation of a new tool financed with loans of these SDRs from developed countries to support the most vulnerable middle-income countries.

“We want to bet on the ability of Latin America to rebuild its national spaces with a more just and sustainable model, taking advantage of the opportunity to transform our societies and solve problems that we have been dragging on for decades,” he said.

Public politics
However, Sánchez has emphasized that mistakes from the past should not be repeated and it is time for governments to make use of all the means and tools to promote public policies that allow building a better world.

” The health crisis has starkly revealed the limitations of the economic model that has been imposed in large areas since the 1980s,” Sánchez recalled, for whom, although it is true that very important growth has been achieved, Inequality also persists, not only social, but intergenerational, gender or between territories, which fuels a growing disaffection on the part of citizens excluded from the distribution of wealth.

In this sense, the Spanish president has recognized that the action of the public sector “will not be sufficient” to achieve these objectives, so the participation and commitment of the private sector will be necessary.

In this way, he stressed that the Spanish Government is committed to Latin America continuing to be a fundamental market for the expansion of Spanish companies.

“There are opportunities for this and the Government will do everything possible to accompany them,” said Sánchez. “Keep investing in Latin America, it is a safe bet,” added the Spanish president, pointing out that ensuring a safe and stable business climate is essential for companies to continue investing in the region.