At the end of May, more than 150 companies and social organizations participated in “Empresa ciudadana”, an event organized by the Center for Applied Ethics of the University of Deusto, REAS Euskadi, a social and solidarity economy network, and Alboan, in which nergroup also participated. The objective was to address the opportunities for business innovation that open up from this good concept.
Leading business leaders, social agents, academics, and public institutions discussed new ways of thinking and doing business with a clear objective: to innovate towards business models that contribute to the protection and care of the planet and the reduction of social inequalities.
On behalf of nergroup, our colleague Atzio Orexa brought the experience of the New Style of Relationships (Nuevo Estilo de Relaciones – NER) and, in particular, the important contribution that we make from our organizations through the ‘Commitment to Society’ teams.
Innovative Methodology
We start from research conducted by the Center for Applied Ethics of the University of Deusto, “The company as a key actor in the construction of social justice: new models of corporate citizenship.” In this way, the term ‘citizen company’ is coined to analyze the cases of five companies that are socially recognized for their contribution to social construction with and through their business project.
With this document as the foundation, a diverse group of people from civil society, business, academia, and public administrations carried out a course-long collective construction exercise, and their findings were made public along with other voices that are also contributing to this change:
- The Church speaks of Economy of Francis and the Economy of the Common Good.
- The civil society promotes social and solidarity companies and the feminist economy.
- The public promotes the 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations
- More and more often such terms like circular economy, bank and financial ethics, corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, businesses with social values and purpose, etc. are heard.
