Economia Social i Solidària

The DiesInnoBA series of activities, organised by Barcelona Activa through Innoba at Ca n’Andalet for 2023-24, focused on ESG (Environmental, Social and Good Governance) impacts in its first quarter. Circoolar, Creadoness and Diomcoop, organisations linked to the RevESStim el Tèxtil programme, also offered through Barcelona Activa, tell us about ESG criteria and how they’re addressing global challenges.

Christmas is coming, lots of people are going shopping, and the planet is hoping that we’ll be more aware of the environmental and climate impact of what we consume. Did you know that clothes are among the most frequently purchased items at Christmas and that clothing production is responsible for approximately 20% of the pollution of drinking water worldwide and the dumping of thousands of pieces of plastic in the ocean?

In 2020, according to the European Environment Agency, the textile industry was the third-largest source of water and land use degradation. It’s been calculated that to dress a single person in the European Union, this industry used 9 m³ of water, 400 m² of land and 391 kg of raw materials, with a carbon footprint of 270 kg. The EEA also reports that the production of textile fibres has nearly doubled worldwide over the past twenty years, jumping from 58 million tonnes in 2000 to 109 million tonnes in 2020, and it’s expected to keep growing.

To offer a proactive response to this situation, Barcelona Activa’s RevESStim el Tèxtil programme,  part of the Plan for Promoting the Social Solidarity Economy 2021-2023, has been supporting the city’s sustainable textile sector since 2018 through specialised training, consultancy for projects, businesses and organisations, and support for networking across initiatives, in addition to strengthening the ESG criteria used to assess the compliance and impact of businesses and social entrepreneurship in terms of “E” for “environmental”, “S” for “social” and “G” for “good governance”.

ESG criteria in the sustainable textile industry

The term “ESG” emerged from the UN Global Compact in 2004 and brings together the three cornerstones of sustainability, including in the textile industry:

“E” refers to environmental sustainability, focusing on using ecological or recycled materials, responsible waste management, reducing energy consumption and promoting local consumption and production.

“S” refers to social sustainability, which supports social causes and dignified working conditions, pursuing society’s overall well-being.

“G” refers to sustainability in governance, meaning organisations whose governance systems prioritise participation and horizontality.

With the goal of better understanding ESG impacts in the textile sector and how the planet and society benefit from the implementation of these criteria, we’ve interviewed three organisations linked to Barcelona Activa’s RevESStim el Tèxtil programme: Circoolar, Creadoness Tèxtil and Diomcoop.


“E” for “environmental”

We’ll start from the beginning, with the first letter in the initialism: “E” for “environmental”. We caught up with Luis Ribó, co-founder and marketing director of Circoolar, who is committed to the circular and social economy in corporate fashion, designing and manufacturing sustainable uniforms and ecological clothing for companies.

Ribó believes that the climate situation has become unsustainable. The increasing consumption of natural resources, the rise in CO₂ emissions and the growing generation of waste, among other issues, is jeopardising the health of our planet and the species – including our own – that call it home. “The textile sector is responsible for between 8% and 10% of CO₂ emissions worldwide. We’re the industry with the third-highest water consumption, responsible for 20% of polluted water globally,” he says.

The fast fashion model is driving down both prices and quality and means that, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “one garbage lorry of textiles is landfilled or incinerated every second.” In Spain last year, between 900,000 and 1,000,000 tonnes of textile waste were generated, the equivalent of a convoy of lorries full of textiles stretching from the centre of Barcelona to the centre of Madrid, and only 7%–10% is recycled. This has led many experts to describe textiles as the new plastic.

That’s why Circoolar decided to get involved and do its part to contribute to a more sustainable future, respectful of the environment and society through the circular economy model of reusing, repairing, renovating and recycling materials to create added value. This way, products’ life cycles can be extended over time.

“At Circoolar, we’re exploring how we can incorporate circular economy and social impact principles into the design, production and manufacturing of workwear,” says Ribó, who gives us the four keys to Circoolar’s model:

1. Sustainability as a raw material.-  They work with ecological materials such as polyester and recycled or organic cotton. They also use dead stock, meaning large orders that haven’t been sold on the market and are kept in warehouses, doomed for incinerators or landfills. Circoolar gives this fabric a second life, shredding it to turn it into high-quality recycled material and create new items.
2. Eco-conscious design.- They make ecological thinking part of the design process for their products so that it’ll be easy for them to be recycled at the end of their useful life or when the corporate logo changes, for example.
3. Production with a social impact.- They work with local social integration and female empowerment workshops for small or medium-sized orders and local professional workshops – offering decent working conditions – in Spain, Portugal and Morocco for larger industrial orders.
4. Pieces of clothing with a second life.- They collect pieces at the end of their useful life. and guarantee that they will be taken to recycling plants, thus avoiding waste generation.

This process seeks to help reduce the textile industry’s environmental impact worldwide.

“S” for “social”

Fashion doesn’t have to be at odds with social issues or sustainability, as everyone at the Creadoness Social Programme knows. Creadoness was created by La Quinta Pata, an organisation that develops sociocultural projects with a gender, intercultural and decolonial perspective based on the values of the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE).

Creadoness, which recently opened its new premises at 25-27 Robadors in Barcelona’s Raval neighbourhood, has been working in sustainable fashion training, production and research for five years. We interviewed team member Silvina Merino, who tells us that the project was created as a way to offer new social and professional opportunities to vulnerable immigrant and refugee women within a framework of inter-cooperation and the values of the SSE. That’s why we’re interested in learning about their work model and what social impact means in the textile industry.

“We work holistically with the women on their empowerment and textile entrepreneurship, with focusing on sustainable fashion,” Merino says. “Over six months, with eight hours of training a week, we encourage women’s creative potential in a broad sense, helping them become creators of products and making creativity a part of their career paths. We previously used art therapy and entrepreneurship skills development through the Theatre of the Oppressed tool. All with the goal of improving their self-esteem. Meanwhile, the women are also learning the theoretical foundations of social entrepreneurship, such as marketing, and are being trained in sewing skills.”

The textile sector is a feminised industry in which 80% of the workforce are women, even though, as in other fields, they’re not the ones in power or leadership positions. “We can all remember a Singer sewing machine used by women in our family. Whether it was our mother or grandmother, women were the ones making the clothes the family wore. At Creadoness, we want to celebrate that formal and informal work and transform it through a different paradigm, with the goal of giving women a valued place in the textile industry.”

Merino feels that the women’s transformation process, from the initial interview to the completion of their training, is what continues to drive the Creadoness programme. “It’s satisfying to see this change, this social impact,” she says. She also believes that “ethics and aesthetics can go hand in hand” and invites us to meet Creadoness at the 9^th Responsible Consumption and Social and Solidarity Economy Fair, taking place from 15 to 29 December in Plaça de Catalunya.

The Fair features 32 stands (16 booths, 12 tents, a clothing market and a sustainable food market) with 62 initiatives, plus the Responsible Consumption Space and the clothing market (with 16 initiatives), with a wide range of handicrafts, clothes and accessories, cultural items, books, packaged foods, toys and other small-scale gift ideas.

“G” for “good governance”

We’ve reached the final letter in the ESG criteria, the “G” for “good governance”. This is one of the most important aspects of any entrepreneurship and business initiative applying these criteria because good governance has to do with organisational ethics, transparency and decision-making. To illustrate how important it is, we spoke with Marie Faye of DiomCoop, a social initiative cooperative made up of people who were previously unauthorised street hawkers. The goal of the cooperative is to provide a sustainable and lasting response to the social and employment inclusion needs of vulnerable immigrants.

The first word in the organisation’s name is highly relevant to the topic: governance. In the Wolof language, spoken in Senegal and Gambia, “djom” refers to the inner strength needed to always choose what’s right under any circumstances.

“Diomcoop is a cooperative that was founded six years ago and is currently made up of 16 workers, both members and non-members. Our main goal is to regularise the status of immigrants, especially those from Sub-Saharan Africa, who are at risk of social exclusion. We also offer training so they can have decent work in Barcelona,” says Faye.

The organisation has worked internally to develop a functional governance system with horizontal leadership, in which everyone is informed so that they can make the necessary decisions within the social initiative and function more efficiently.

Faye believes that there are two fundamental benefits of working with ESG criteria, especially when it comes to their Governing Board, which carries out the decisions made in the Members’ Assembly: first, it streamlines work because when each person knows what their role is, work on the line is easier, more fluid and better coordinated within the team. The second aspect is the democratic, collective approach that must be applied to all decision-making within the cooperative, in line with Diomcoop’s philosophy. “When there’s a governance structure, decision-making is easier since decisions have to go through all the filters and, at the same time, be unanimous, understood and accepted by everyone,” Faye says.

“Thanks to this governance system, I’ve learned good teamwork skills. I’ve learned that if things aren’t done as a team, maybe they’ll get done, but they won’t have the same meaning. People won’t take ownership of the project. They’ll only be involved as workers; there won’t be a community dimension. It’s very important for everyone to have a place within the structure because we’re a collective, transparent and collaborative initiative.”

One of Diomcoop’s projects is the Diambaar brand, which creates, produces and markets its own designs, while time seeking to support African producers and retailers, as well as social initiative projects in the city. The fabric is bought in Africa, and the production takes place in Barcelona. They also have a workshop for making African clothing, which they produce with the goal of addressing the social and employment inclusion needs of immigrants in a sustainable way. These products can also be found at the 9^th Responsible Consumption and Social and Solidarity Economy Fair in Plaça de Catalunya.

Promoting ESG impacts at DiesInnoBA

If you’re interested in learning more about ESG impacts, check out DiesInnoBA, an innovative Barcelona Activa programme that seeks to make the SSE and socio-economic innovation more accessible to the general public. In the last quarter of 2023, the programme focused on promoting ESG, and the materials created are available to anyone interested in learning or reviewing concepts or improving their skills in order to incorporate ESG criteria in their business and social entrepreneurship practices. This availability makes it possible for participants to continue their learning independently, consolidating the knowledge acquired and applying it effectively in their business initiatives with an ESG focus:

• ConversESS1: Good governance as a key to promoting ESG impacts.
• ConversESS2: Investing with an impact.

In the first half of 2024, DiesInnoBA will be focusing on Recruiting and Retaining Talent and the Social Market. The dates of their upcoming activities will soon be published on their website. The DiesInnoBA sessions seek to promote relevant socio-economic innovation and SSE practices and make the SSE more accessible to city residents and the business network.