For yet another year, the Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Sustainability was organised by the UIC Barcelona Office for Cooperation and Sustainable Development, headed by lecturer Silvia Albareda. As part of the seventeenth edition, 11 research projects and 6 intervention proposals linked to the ethical challenges of responsible consumption were presented. Participants included students from the bachelor’s degrees in Business Administration and Management, Primary Education and Architecture. With a total of 18 panellists, the winners of the 17th edition will be announced shortly.

The 1st prize for the best intervention proposal was awarded to the project “Juega con las finanzas y gana tu futuro con MAPFRE”, developed by Carlotta Formica, Margherita Di Leo, Giovanni Tosetto, Fernando Gordún Gómez-Moreno, Tommaso Millefiorini, and Mishel Ahuja, students of the University Master's Degree in Business Management and Production Systems.

Meanwhile, the 1st prize for the best research project was awarded to “Reimagining the Cycle”, created by Nia Sikharulidze and Sofia Torras Vall, students in their 5th year at the School of Architecture.

These awards highlight the students’ academic excellence and their strong commitment to sustainability-related challenges.

Roundtable: Benefits of simple living

The initiative, dedicated to reflecting on sustainable consumption and ethics, also included a roundtable featuring Loreto Gala, creative director of the sustainable fashion brand Two Thirds; Cristina Casanovas, auditor for the certification company SGS; and Miriam Villa, climate action officer for the Government of Catalonia. The debate, moderated by Faculty of Communication Sciences lecturer Joan Hernández, explored the benefits of simple living, based on the speakers' personal and professional experiences.

Cristina Casanovas placed the spotlight on individual responsibility: “From the moment we get up: from the time you wake to the time you go to bed, you use around 1,200 chemical substances. These substances find their way to the sea, in which we later swim,” reflected the expert. Along these same lines, Loreto Gala added that, “simple living is a daily form of self-reflection, as all our decisions have an impact on others. Consciousness is the path to freedom and change,” she explained.

According to Miriam Villa, simple living does not mean sad. “There are certain sacrifices we must accept. The happiest people are those who consume the least, as they have no voids to fill,” illustrated Villa. More specifically, the officer from the Government of Catalonia explained that her department is working towards a “circular economy” through projects such as “A Pact for Fashion”, which encourages textile companies to make their practices more sustainable.

Green labelling: Sustainable practice or greenwashing?

The discussion examined the practice of greenwashing from different perspectives. Cristina Casanovas, whose job involves certifying and verifying companies in aspects related to the environment and pollution, spoke about the “shifting regulatory tsunami” that companies must navigate to comply with the European Union’s sustainability requirements. According to Casanovas, “there are an increasing number of companies that value their contribution to society, and the regulations feel less burdensome when a company is founded with sustainable practices rather than having to adapt to them.”

Loreto Gala, for her part, shared her view as an entrepreneur: “For me, it’s the opposite: we have to fight to remain sustainable. Green labelling costs money, and small companies face greater challenges in obtaining certification than large companies. It’s in these cases that some exploit the sustainability trend,” argued the founder of Two Thirds.

Lastly, the debate shifted to the actions that students may take to be more conscious and sustainable in their daily lives. Formulas include being more frugal with clothing and using public transportation. “From the projects on display, it’s clear that sustainability is part of who you are, as you’ve been educated in it from a young age, unlike our generation,” asserted Miriam Villa. All the speakers agreed that education and training are key to developing citizens who are more responsible, more aware and, as a result, freer.