The University of Barcelona (UB) signed an agreement with the Economy for the Common Good (ECG) Association in Catalunya in 2016. The purpose of this agreement was to implement practical research on ECG tools and the creation of a specific chair for this subject field, as well as promoting ECG values within the University and in other areas, such as the social, business, educational and media fields. The UB incorporated ECG management tools and published its first Common Good Balance Sheet back in 2017.

The UB and the ECG designed an immersive formative experience for the first-year students of business administration and the business administration and law joint degree. At the beginning of the course, they are faced with a challenge: find a real company in their immediate environment to which they can apply the ECG principles and values. They use a summarised version of the test to carry out the assessment and, most importantly, offer the company a viable improvement plan. The students present their conclusions in a final session supervised by consultants from the ECG Association in Catalunya, where they present their work, answer questions and choose the best works among their own teams.

The consulting team with over 6 years of experience, has had an invaluable opportunity to assess the evolution, motivation and the degree of involvement of the students. In the last 2 years since this programme started, they have detected an evergrowing interest in carrying out a thesis project linked to the ECG or other more inclusive and sustainable models. An increasingly hostile environment cultivates greater interest and open-mindedness in alternative systems beyond the search for economic benefit. The general public begins to understand the importance of the broad and democratic vision that characterises the ECG.

On this same note, the UB will be introducing a mandatory core subject across all degrees, starting on the 2024-2025 academic period, on sustainability and the environment called “ecosocial crisis”. It will also train its teachers in the climate emergency workforce over a period of 4 years. The integration of this module is related to the ”End Fossil” environmental student movement that protested on the occasion of the Climate Summit in Egypt (COP 27).

Read more and learn about the ECG Association in Catalunya

Read the University of Barcelona’s press release (in Catalan)