Vice President Yllanes visited one of the ILS companies, Bionorica Extracts, which grows and extracts medicinal plants.
A total of 25 companies have already signed up to the Local Sustainable Industry (ILS) guarantee mark, promoted by the Institute for Business Innovation, which aims to identify and make visible the industries of the Balearic Islands that are committed to the environment and are involved in calculating and reducing their carbon footprint.
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The Vice President for Energy Transition, Productive Sectors and Democratic Memory, Juan Pedro Yllanes, visited Bionorica Extracts, one of the ILS member companies. The company, located in Consell, cultivates medicinal plants over large areas using modern cultivation methods and extracts the ingredients for several world-renowned natural medicines. The general director of Industrial Policy, Antoni Morro, and the managing director of the IDI, Mariona Luis, took part in the visit accompanied by Natividad Gómez and Javier Agueda, the Bionorica Extracts management team.
During the visit, the vice president stressed that “the current context obliges the industrial fabric to take a step forward and become part of the solution to face the crisis and the climate emergency we are suffering, and this company is an example of this”. Bionorica is a pioneer in ecologically sustainable production in Germany and has already been climate neutral in direct emissions for three years due to investments in sustainable technology and processes. In order to make Bionorica’s economic development also environmentally friendly in Mallorca, several investments in solar systems, digital technology and energy-saving measures have been carried out. For example, 850 square metres of solar panels have been installed on the roof of the extraction plant, production has been digitised to save energy and the lighting has been converted to energy-saving LED technology.
According to Yllanes, “from the Administration, we have to offer tools and facilitate the way to the industrial fabric of the Balearic Islands so that they can catch up with the challenges arising from climate change, whose consequences are clear in the Balearic Islands, which are much more vulnerable due to the fact that they are islands. That is why the IDI has launched the Local Sustainable Industry guarantee mark, which in just two months already has twenty-five member companies”.
The requirements to be part of ILS are to have an industrial IAE, a registered office in the Balearic Islands and an active production line in the Balearic Islands. In addition, they must have calculated their greenhouse gas emissions and committed to reducing them.
Among the actions carried out by ILS companies to reduce their carbon footprint are, on the one hand, measures to improve energy efficiencies such as the installation of photovoltaic panels, improved insulation, or the replacement of lighting with low-consumption LEDs. In addition, they also propose changing the vehicle fleet to electric or hybrid vehicles. Finally, training to increase awareness and skills among staff to save energy consumption is another of the most widely implemented measures in the industry.
Of the companies adhering to ILS so far, 28 % belong to the construction sector, 24 % to the chemical sector, 16 % to the agri-food sector, 12 % to the nautical sector, 8 % to the telecommunications sector, 8 % to the footwear sector and 4 % to the social sector.
For their part, ILS industries enjoy benefits in the calls for subsidies from the Directorate General for Energy and Climate Change, as well as visibility through the website www.industrialocalsostenible.es, where citizens can now find out about companies committed to the territory and its conservation, and where companies that wish to join can register. This digital platform is also an information point for all industries to keep up to date with the latest news on regulations, laws, research and proposals to combat the effects of climate change.
Until now, sustainability in companies was only seen as an option, the current context tells us that now is the time and that it is now everyone’s responsibility. That is why the IDI has launched several projects to accompany and advise companies on the road to sustainability, such as the ILS guarantee mark, sustainability consultancy cheques, or awareness-raising workshops for companies.
Bionorica, from Neumarkt, Bavaria, has been a market leader for many years in several countries around the world with its scientifically researched natural medicines. In Mallorca, the company, which has won several awards for its innovations, has been cultivating medicinal plants for years on more than 60 hectares, which are extracted in Consell using high-tech methods and then processed into natural medicines in Neumarkt.