Biodiversity Foundation Project: ODinn

Since the beginning of the industrial era, large corporations and businesses have largely been responsible for the environmental, ecological, and resource scarcity problems affecting our planet.

In Spain, according to the Sustainability Observatory (2019), just 10 companies accounted for 62% of total fixed GHG emissions in 2018. Looking at sectors, the main polluting sector remains the burning of fossil fuels—i.e., coal, fuel oil, and gas—followed by cement, refineries, and steel production.

In this context, business and the environment could be conceived as two opposing elements: not many years ago, business (industry, construction, agriculture, etc.) was seen as a source of pollution and environmental destruction, and, for its part, environmental concerns were thought to be a brake on business development and job creation.

For this reason, companies play a fundamental role in the transition toward more sustainable production models. Furthermore, it is increasingly clear that, contrary to traditional views, corporate social and environmental responsibility are values that increase their competitiveness, enabling differentiation, cost reduction, proper risk management, and increased productivity and employee and customer satisfaction.

Innovation plays a crucial role in all of this: creating new ideas and solutions, generating changes that ultimately yield positive results, is closely linked to corporate social and environmental responsibility.

To this end, a training program will be offered, both in-person and online, completely free of charge for recipients. It is aimed at employees in companies with the potential and scope for improvement in implementing eco-innovative initiatives.

All of this with the ultimate goal of improving the skills and qualifications of the target workers in terms of sustainability in business activity, with the resulting improvements:

1. On the part of employees: their contractual situation, job retention and professional progression and
2. For companies: compliance with environmental legislation, Corporate Social Responsibility, and SDGs, and their positioning and differentiation, by integrating their business strategy with new environmental, technological, and innovation strategies.
3. The percentage of women participating in the project will be 40%, while the percentage of participation of other priority groups (the sum of all other groups except women) will be 70%.