Under the title “The Circular Path” the Strategic Group participated yesterday in a day that brought together professionals from different sectors to demonstrate that circularity is possible, but the collaboration and commitment of all is necessary.

The event, within the program Sinsal Litoral SON Estrella Galicia festival, had the objective of giving visibility to the existing challenges and the need to create an efficient and sustainable economy in the use of resources, in the protection of the health of people, in the protection of the environment and cultural heritage and with a view to pursuing common objectives.

With more than fifty participants linked to companies and entities, the day began at 11 am with a session organized by the Paideia Galiza Foundation. They presented the European project CIRCULAR LABS, focused on the promotion of the circular economy in entrepreneurial culture. They also had the participation of the company REVERTIA, and with the divulger Ana Rodríguez Vázquez, consultant of Strategic Sustainability, Circular Economy and CSR. Subsequently, a space for debate and exchange of experiences was opened with the participation of Agroamb, a circular company that manages organic waste from the industrial sector and Oui Jane!, starting in the textile sector from the circularity.

After a guided visit to San Simon island by the artist and researcher Iria Vázquez, the afternoon session began with the title ” Creating circularity”, in which the designer Isaac Piñeiro introduced through different examples ideas on how to undertake processes of transformation and circularity from art and culture. At the table he was accompanied by the manager of the Health Cluster of Galicia (CSG), Gisela Álvarez, and the researcher Miguel Rodríguez, member of ECOBAS and the GEN group, expert in Circular Economy and coordinator of the preparation of the chapter on circularity in the Galician company of the ARDAN Report, work carried out within the collaboration agreement between the University of Vigo and the Consortium Zona Franca de Vigo and promoted by ECOBAS.

The session also served to present the collaboration agreement recently signed between the CSG, ECOBAS and the Singular Research Center CINBIO, with the aim of initiating joint projects and activities as research projects, organization of academic activities or support to researchers/students, among others. This collaboration provides an opportunity to boost the health and social and health sector by bringing together three actors from different but complementary fields, which will surely enable them to achieve important achievements.

Thus, the CSG will act as a catalyst in this cooperation, acting as a link between the industrial sector, patient associations, and public and private institutions in Galicia, and the academic and university research field. ECOBAS will apply its knowledge and experience in the field of the economy and business management to this socio-health field; and CINBIO (co-financed with ERDF funds) will do so in the field of biosanitary and biotechnological research, and in particular molecular medicine, nutrition and welfare, nanomaterials, health informatics, and biostatistics.

The day was closed with the presentation of the book “Alén do azul” by the publisher Catro Ventos, project that shows the seabed of the Ria de Vigo and carried out by the cooperative society “13 grados”.

Sinsal Litoral festival, which normally takes place on the island of San Simon, this year does so, due to the exceptional circumstances that we are living, from July 22 to 26 in different enclaves of the coast of the Rías Baixas, but including in its program, as every year, a variety of cultural and musical activities. The day held yesterday shows that a change of model is necessary to reduce the environmental cost and extend the useful life of materials and waste, and that it is necessary to raise awareness of the problems but also to share solutions and improvement projects.