Biomedicine and health sector companies work to improve their sustainability

Just a few months after the close of the Shared Value programme, all the companies that completed it are now at various stages along the path to implementing sustainability in their business models and activity. A total of 10 companies completed the programme and the B Impact Assessment (BIA) self-assessment process. The programme is the first initiative launched by the CataloniaBio & HealthTech Sustainability Workgroup with the aim of improving companies’ competitiveness by equipping them with tools to consider their impact on society.

While some companies had already started to incorporate sustainability, others used their participation in the Shared Value programme as a launching pad for development in this area. The first part of the programme provided the participants with an introduction to the concepts of shared value and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The programme was our first introduction to sustainability and the notion of shared value as a corporate strategy. – Valentine Pironneau, participant, NewBorn Solutions

It allowed us to see the tools that B Corp provides to identify where there is room for improvement and what actions we can take to adapt to society’s needs from the holistic perspective of sustainability. – Anna Román Rosier, participant, Mowoot

Reviewing the basic concepts also helped them to identify any sustainability practices they might already have been implementing and to obtain new resources to improve their capacity to align these actions and objectives.

It has provided us with the knowledge, confidence and know-how necessary to launch new sustainability projects in the company and has allowed us to understand that interdepartmental collaboration is fundamental to achieving growth in this regard. – Isabel Amat & Marta Masides, participants, Reig Jofre

We have learnt from experts and other companies how to take certain key aspects on board and how to bring order to and engage – with the help of B Corp’s tools – with the corresponding information, actions and objectives. – Claudi Rovira Jurado, participant, BioSystems.

How should projects that benefit society be launched? Having assimilated the basic lessons, the companies then received support to conduct a sustainability self-diagnosis and design an initial action plan in order to either start to work in this area or to develop sustainable projects they had already begun to implement.

We took a look at where we were as a company, how we interacted with our environment and with people, and we used this analysis as the basis for the design of improvement projects with a more cross-cutting approach. Now we can formulate a roadmap to continue contributing to sustainability in a holistic manner, that is, taking into account people, the planet, preventive measures and prosperity. – Àngels Xarpell, participant, Avinent.

We have carried out analyses and self-criticism of the various scopes in which the company operates and has an impact using a tool that offers a holistic vision and allows us to discover new practices and improve our global management. – Conxita Rusinés,participant, Vytrus Biotech.

What is your company doing to support sustainable development? This is the question put to these CataloniaBio & HealthTech companies within the Shared Value programme. Now, thanks to the programme, they have managed to identify what their company is doing in this regard and what more they could be doing to consider the impact on their environment and promote projects that benefit society. In some cases, the programme has even helped them with certification:

We successfully completed the BIA during the programme and we hope to be able to apply for B Corp certification in the next 6 months and, more importantly, improve every day as a company! – Elizabeth Gil-Roldán, participant, ABZU

The programme was an initiative of the CataloniaBio & HealthTech Sustainability Workgroup, the Mental Health Cluster of Catalonia and ACCIÓ (the Government of Catalonia Agency for Business Competitiveness), with the collaboration of Roots for Sustainability, in order to guide companies in the biomedicine and health sector in transitioning to more sustainable, circular business models, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).