Barcelona City Council has promoted Barcelona+Ban initiative of social and business transformation which seeks to improve the environmental impact of companies and citizens of the Catalan capital, to turn them into its main agents of change and positive transformation.
The goal is for companies, universities, foundations, public institutions, entrepreneurs and citizens to work together to make Barcelona a better cityprojecting it as a city of reference in business transformation and in the contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals from the local level.
Barcelona+B is part of the Ciudades+B programme, a global initiative whose main objective is mobilize the hundreds of thousands of people around the world and to all actors to improve the cities in which they live. In this sense, Barcelona+B already has multiple allied organizations that collaborate in the dissemination and development of the project, such as: Acció, Barcelona Center de Disseny, B Academics Spain, Barcelona Global, Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Comunidad B Catalunya, Impact Hub Barcelona, Netmentora and Ship2B Foundation.
In the presentation of the initiative, Miquel Rodríguez, commissioner for the 2030 Agenda of the Barcelona City Council, Mario Rovirosa, CEO of Ferrer, and Federica Massa-Saluzzo, professor of strategy and director of master’s degrees in sustainability at EADA, explained the reason for being of Barcelona+B and its full commitment to the initiative. “EADA Business School reaffirms its commitment to sustainability, involving itself through its resources in this ambitious project to make Barcelona one of the world capitals of the Sustainable Development Goals”, commented Federica Massa-Saluzzo.
On the other hand, Mario Rovirosa explained that “Being part of Barcelona+B fits with Ferrer’s purpose of generating a positive impact on society. It is our responsibility as a company to encourage other companies to do the same. If we don’t act now, two generations from now, young people won’t understand how companies did nothing to leave them a better world”. For his part, Miquel Rodríguez stated that “From the Barcelona City Council, we have committed ourselves to promoting the 2030 Agenda in the city. Thus, within the framework of the Barcelona Green Deal, we are promoting actions to accompany the transformation of the economy towards sustainability. Initiatives such as Barcelona+B complement municipal action, because achieving sustainability in our economy also involves direct and determined action by the business community”.
international testimony
The presentation of Barcelona+B also included an international testimonial from Anette Richardson, former senior advisor of the UN Office for Partnerships, who delved into the commitment that Barcelona acquires in the direction of transformation and sustainability. “We celebrate Barcelona’s membership in the Ciudades+B movement, a critical commitment to transformation and sustainability to advance the Sustainable Development Goals. Together, Barcelona and its stakeholders and partners have to continue inventing, developing and launching countless new ideas and solutions to leave no one behind. To be successful, they must turn global goals into local actions and opportunities. To transform dreams into realities, they must build strong alliances and partnerships to provide a better future for their citizens and design an aspirational model for other cities to adopt.” Annette Richardson explained.
Finally, Raimon Puigjaner, President of B Lab in Spain, and Elena Damiá, Director of Barcelona+B, presented the main objectives of the project. “With this ambitious project we want to change the way in which we relate to our city, because we, the citizens and companies, are the main agents of change and positive transformation. All together we will work to turn Barcelona into a better city”, Raimon Puigjaner declared. Likewise, Elena Damiá explained that “Barcelona+B is to project Barcelona internationally as a city of impact through the transformation of the business model. It is promoting collaboration to generate solutions to our challenges as a city and it is stimulating citizen participation to achieve their involvement”.
Barcelona, a leading city in the world in sustainability
Barcelona thus joins the global movement Cities+B, designed to mobilize and promote collaboration between all the actors in a city (citizens, businesses, government, entrepreneurs, social innovators, academia and organized civil society) with a single objective: to promote together a cultural change that redefines the way each one of the actors assumes their responsibility and impact on the cities we build and inhabit. Ciudades+B is already present in six countries and their key cities, such as the United Kingdom (Edinburgh), Chile (Santiago), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro) or Argentina (Mendoza).
There are many challenges that arise in the current context, both in the social and economic spheres. Wanting to improve our environment and the impact of all our actions, both by citizens and by companies, is one of the challenges to be addressed in order to achieve shared well-being. This is also one of the main objectives of Barcelona+B, which seeks for Barcelona citizens and organizations to become agents of change in the city.
