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Santo Domingo, R. D.-
October 16, 2020 - The Chair of Sustainability "Alejandro E. Grullón E." held the Dialogue on Corporate Social Responsibility: How to close the life cycle? Industrial symbiosis, circular economy and ecodesign, with Dr. Bélgica Pacheco, professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.
This dialogue began with Dr. Bélgica Pacheco referring to the concept of sustainability as "something that goes far beyond being respectful of the environment, it is about finding the balance or pursuing a relatively balanced relationship of economic, social and environmental development" . In turn, she stressed that the different actors involved in this scheme (society, industry, administration and nature) must have harmonious interactions between each of them.
In addition, Dr. Pacheco stated that the circular economy arises by applying learning from natural systems to the business environment, adding that it can occur at three levels: macro, when it is developed in large regions; meso, when companies located in a nearby environment apply different resources and micro, which occurs in product design production processes.
She described ecodesign as the process of thinking from the early stages of product development what the utility scenarios will be to take advantage of existing resources. Also, she recognized the need to make users aware of the use of the products and their life extension. As a result of this, he stated "of course we will not be able to achieve an absolute balance between the three dimensions of sustainability, but we must try, because through the measurement, projection and visualization of different scenarios, planning can be done in the short, medium and long term that allows us to guide everything”.
Dr. Pacheco pointed out some factors that help or limit companies in the adoption of industrial symbiosis; Among the first, she cited the reduction of costs for obtaining resources, the reduction of waste to secondary materials, the creation of more income and the construction of new relationships with more companies; and among the implementation barriers, she mentioned the risk and uncertainty to identify the cost-benefit difficulties, the lack of time, the increase in logistics and the lack of technical training.