CIAC is committed to circular economy and energy efficiency

The first meeting of 2021 of the Strategic Sustainability Area of the Automotive Industry Cluster of Catalonia (CIAC) has served to show the clear commitment that the sector wants to make towards the circular economy, the reduction of the carbon footprint and energy efficiency, lines of work aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

In this sense, about fifty companies attended the meeting to learn about the projects promoted by the Cerdà Institute, Anthesis Lavola, Nifco, Linde Wiemann and Aubay, such as the creation of a tool to calculate the carbon footprint of companies in the sector and how to promote the circular economy in the automotive industry, as well as making an analysis of the energy consumption of an industrial plant and the automation of the energy demand according to the level of production in order to reduce energy waste (or to optimize energy expenditure).

In addition to the projects, the Strategic Area of Sustainability has reviewed the training sessions that will be developed. One of them is a webinar to encourage the implementation of equality plans for companies in the sector. The fact that in less than a year from now (at the moment companies with more than 50 employees) all companies will be obliged to present sustainability reports has led the area to call a double training session in order to explaining the regulations and providing practical aids (and highlighting the importance of implementing equality plans and making companies aware that in order to achieve gender equality in a period of less than 200 years . . there has to be a change in this direction).

In addition, in view of the new change in electricity consumption tariffs that will come into force in April, a training session has also been created to inform companies about the changes, how they can affect their energy costs and how to adjust their tariffs so that they are not affected.

During the session the Cluster Manager, Josep Nadal, explained to the companies that Sustainability is one of the important bases of the Next Generation EU program. In addition, he also commented that this 2021 they will be able to opt again for the AEI (Innovative Business Associations) grants, which will have two calls this year, in March with an endowment of 8 million euros and in the summer with an endowment of 20 million euros.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)