- The Madrid Foro Empresarial CSR Roundtable, coordinated by Envera, brings together the sustainability managers of Iberia, Ferrovial and Ibercaja.
- The Minister of Transport of the Community of Madrid closed the meeting.
- A model for measuring the ROI of social responsibility has been shown.
Madrid | June 22, 2022
This Tuesday, the Madrid headquarters of GSG Business Hub hosted the Madrid Business Forum 'Social responsibility as a strategy for competitiveness', with the participation of Iberia's Director of Sustainability, Teresa Parejo; Ibercaja's Director of CSR, María González; Ferrovial's Director of Communications, Francisco Polo; the Vice President of Confassociazioni, Francesco Perniciaro; the CEO of Envera, Enrique Grande; and which was closed by the Minister of Transport and Infrastructures of the Community of Madrid, David Pérez.
Throughout the different interventions, the speakers agreed that social responsibility is key to the strategy of business organizations, going from being a reputational option to becoming a fundamental aspect of their competitiveness.
This has also been assured, in the case of the public administration, by Councilor David Pérez, who referred to Metro de Madrid as a success story "a reference worldwide" and that, thanks to the collaboration with Envera, includes people with intellectual disabilities to be part of the subway, becoming an exemplary public company in inclusion, diversity and social responsibility.
In addition, Perez assured that Madrid and its citizens are especially "supportive of those who need the most support" and gave as an example the support that the Community offers to refugees arriving from Ukraine displaced by the Russian invasion, both in their care and reception and in raising awareness in society.
For his part, Parejo discussed the airline's commitment to social responsibility, which for more than 45 years has been linked to Envera's social project for the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities, and also to sustainability in line with ESG (environment, social and governance) criteria. He also wanted to emphasize that, as we have seen during the pandemic, "the social value of aviation is enormous".
Along the same lines, María González explained that Ibercaja was born with a clear social vocation and, in just a few years, it has developed a specific CSR department to support customers, comply with legislation and be a driving force for companies in terms of their impact on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN's 2030 Agenda.
Francisco Polo focused on the current geopolitical panorama and wanted to reflect on the possible "reindustrialization" of Europe after the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which will be a challenge given that the European Union wants to lead the way towards decarbonization. The Ferrovial dircom also pointed out that "there is a need for universal and defined standards to address CSR and sustainability" at a global level.
All in all, ESG criteria and social responsibility are an investment for organizations that decide to develop sustainability plans, so measuring return on investment (ROI) has become a priority for accountable companies as well, also on a non-financial level.
The vice-president of the Italian organization Confassociazioni, which specializes in measuring the return on investments with social impact (SROI), said that social responsibility has benefits for the company itself in that it recovers, and increases, the investment made in CSR.
The general manager of Envera and coordinator of the Madrid Foro Empresarial's Competitive Social Responsibility Committee thanked all the participants for their contributions, which "make it clear that CSR is a decisive and strategic value for companies, improving the customer experience, favoring internal cohesion, employee commitment and greater pride in belonging".
From this desk, Envera advises, guides and accompanies companies in the development of their CSR plans as a strategic value for business competitiveness, contributing more than four decades of experience in diversity management and the development of social responsibility, which it makes available to the business community through its proposals and the loudspeaker of Madrid Foro Empresarial.
