On the sofa with… Miguel Arroyo, Head of Environment at UN Global Compact Spain

Advanced Manufacturing Madrid – Let’s talk about progress and sustainability. What steps are companies taking to become more sustainable?

Miguel Arroyo – Yes, we are seeing that they are totally interrelated. Companies are working on sustainability and innovating their entire business model and moving from a linear model to a circular model. These changes are also having an impact on their profits. Normally, companies think that if they remain stagnant, if they maintain everything they are doing, they will maintain their profits. But what we are seeing is that, if they change this model, they increase their profits and therefore have a positive impact.

Why is that? Well, mainly if we reduce our carbon footprint, in the end what we are doing is also reducing our consumption and that also has an impact on the profits of the companies. Also if we change the life cycle of products and we have a more circular cycle where we are going to need less raw materials, we are going to be able to reuse them, recycle them and renew them, and it is also going to have an impact on the costs of those products.

So, therefore, innovation is fundamental for us to achieve that sustainability and ultimately have an impact on the profits of companies.

AMM – Can we reach a point where we talk about green or zero-emission industries, and is that a near future?

M. Arroyo – And I hope so, but the truth is that we are coming from a time when this is already happening, but in an uncontrolled way. Many companies are using the famous Green Claims or greenwashing to call themselves sustainable, green, efficient, without really having a background to justify that they are. That is why the Green Claims Directive, which the European Union is going to approve next year, is going to encourage companies that call themselves such to really prove it, because in the end, if not, any of us can say that we are renewable, that we are green, that we recycle.

But who can prove it? We need a European regulation that will be finished next year, which is really going to be a model so that in a few years’ time we can ensure, as you say, that these companies really have achieved neutrality, have a renewable product, have a green product and we don’t do it right now without control.

Innovation is fundamental. If we don’t innovate in our product, in our business model, it is impossible for us to achieve climate neutrality. We have to give it a 360-degree turnaround and not only the Sustainability Department, which we often focus on them, who are the ones who have to carry out these changes, but it has to be something holistic for the whole organisation, for all companies.

It has to be something transversal in which all departments come together to find the best way to achieve that innovation and that transformation and to be able to produce a more efficient, more renewed product that even has a more visual appearance, that is more in line with nature. Let’s look for those nature-based solutions to make business more sustainable and greener.