The rector of the University of Granada, Pilar Aranda, presided over the presentation of the Cívitas-UGR Chair ‘Sustainability, Innovation and Development’. This initiative is the result of the interaction between business and academia in the areas of sustainability, innovation and training. The event was also attended by the Communication Director of Cívitas, José Ángel Torralba; the Vice Rector for Equality, Inclusion and Sustainability of the UGR, Marga Sánchez Romero; the project officer of the JRC of the European Commission and co-author of the European reference framework in transversal competences LifeComp, Arianna Sala; and the professor of the Faculty of Translation and Interpretation and director of the Cívitas-UGR Chair, Mercedes García de Quesada.

In the 2022/2024 biennium, the Chair will work on sustainable construction and structural wood products to reduce the carbon footprint, as well as on transversal competencies for sustainable human development, on the other hand.

The rector of the University of Granada, Pilar Aranda, stressed that this chair “is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and is based on training, educating and understanding.”

Cívitas’ Communication Director, José Ángel Torralba, pointed out that the Chair has already launched a challenge: “To achieve the first catalog of sustainable materials for construction, a tangible and fundamental step. This document will be based on national and international research and will contemplate realities such as rice husks that serve to insulate buildings, or poplar wood, which replaces certain metal structures”.

The Vice-Rector for Equality, Inclusion and Sustainability of the University of Granada, Marga Sánchez Romero, recalled the importance “that all institutions assume sustainability as the axis of their policies, an objective that led us from the beginning to welcome and promote this chair”.

The director of the Cívitas-UGR Chair ‘Sustainability, Innovation and Development’, Mercedes García de Quesada, emphasized that this initiative “works towards necessary and urgent sustainable solutions. We will develop a transformative learning methodology to also transform the environment”.

The project officer of the JRC of the European Commission and co-author of the European reference framework on transversal competences LifeComp, Arianna Sala, remarked that “training in transversal competences, as this chair will do, allows us to improve as a society and to be more resilient in the current difficult European context”.

The presentation of the Chair was followed by the SDG Debate “A call to action. Business, academia and society: Weaving sustainable alliances to promote healthy changes. Are you in? Jorge Castro, professor of the Department of Ecology, principal investigator of the Conservation and Restoration of Ecosystems and Agroecosystems project of the UGR; and Antolino Gallego, professor at the ETS of Building Engineering and coordinator of the European project LIFE Wood, also participated in the debate.

Specifically, Cívitas-UGR will sponsor and collaborate synergistically with LIFE Wood for Future in the training of prescribers and calculators of timber frame buildings, in dissemination and communication tasks, in the development of a catalog of sustainable materials in construction, as well as in possible replicability actions in the buildings of the developer and real estate company Cívitas of the MCLam and MCLamBS products developed within the framework of the LIFE project.