Social entrepreneurship is the creation of a business opportunity that creates impact and focuses on solving social and environmental problems.
This new type of company seeks, in the words of Lourdes Mirón, President of Jovesolides, “to add value to any business by incorporating creativity techniques into the ideation process and listening to the community concerned to solve the problem” and leave a positive footprint in terms of its impact on society and the environment.
For this reason, many companies are beginning to implement measures to improve workers’ rights, as well as measures that contribute to sustainability, good practises and corporate social responsibility. The ideas that emerge from these new ventures have a common denominator that has to do with community engagement, the need for social innovation and the use of creativity.
To better understand what actions Valencian companies have taken to promote entrepreneurship and social innovation, we explain below five examples of companies that have incorporated these innovative initiatives into their internal programmes.
Tejidos Royo was founded more than a century ago in Picassent as a textile company. Since then, the path of this multinational company from Valencia has been marked by the development of the most advanced industrial processing techniques. It was a pioneer in foam dyeing technology and the first textile company in Europe to use environmentally friendly primary materials (pre-consumer recycled materials, Tencel® and fibres of organic origin) in the production of its fabrics.
Currently, Tejidos Royo is internationally award-winning for its pioneering use of technology DRY ÍNDIGO, a technique that uses 0% water in the indigo dyeing process, which means no water is released into the environment. Therefore, it is considered a company committed to respecting and protecting human rights and the environment in all value chains.
It all started with a small bakery in the 1950s in a Valencian town called Villalonga. Over the years, they created the ‘Gloria’ Magdalenas, their first top-quality product, and founded the cooking brand Dulcesol, in reality Vicky Foods in honour of their grandmother Victoria, one of the founders and pioneers in the quest for quality products as an independent brand.
Today, Vicky Foods is a dedicated company committed to scientific research, healthy habits for its consumers and health and wellness programmes for its employees. They are also focusing on improving the nutritional profile of their products and communicating transparent information about their products, with more and more eco-innovations such as the elimination of added colours and partially hydrogenated fats.
A Valencian company with more than thirty years of experience in the property sector and more than ten in energy. Their HQ in Benidrom and Valencia This company makes its customers their own energy managers and designs specific energy saving plans for companies that rely on self-consumption and the use of high-capacity industrial batteries.
in 2018, Cubierta Solar received the Technological and Entrepreneurial Innovation Award from the Cámara de Comercio de Alicante for its Pérgola Fotovoltaica, the first solar panel to use no aluminium framing.
The company was founded in 1983 by the Cortés Torres family and is located in La Pobla de Vallbona. Since 2016, with the generational renewal of the company’s management, Ferros la Pobla has been promoting the social action ‘Mujeres de Hierro’, a business entrepreneurship programme in collaboration with ALIA (Association for Equal Opportunities between Women and Men) in order to disseminate and raise awareness among companies about the importance of initiating equality plans in male-dominated sectors. With this initiative, the Valencian company is implementing a series of actions to address issues such as equality among workers, commitment to conciliatory labour policies, labour flexibility, proximity between management and female workers, and others. For this reason, we consider it one of the benchmarks for efficient, innovative and accessible management in a field where such companies are rare.
ImpactE is a company specialised in IT services, artificial intelligence programming and data analysis applied to energy efficiency decision making. Therefore, it analyses the impact of every person, city and business by collecting, analysing and simplifying information using geographic information systems, artificial intelligence and data science to facilitate decision-making and help reduce the footprint each individual leaves on society and promote the energy transition. By analysing data and providing information, Urban ImpactE seeks to engage citizens concerned about their ecological impact in an ever-changing society. With the results of each analysis, they try to find the most ecological solution possible in each case. In this way, they help cities make the best decisions for their energy transition and give citizens relevant data to help shape the change.
