The Conference Centre and Auditorium of La Rioja (Riojafórum), in Logroño, is hosting today the conference “Towards a more responsible Rioja”, during which issues around environmental and social responsibility are discussed. The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva, participated in the inauguration of the Foundation, together with the vice-president and Minister of Tourism, Environment and Territorial Policy of the Government of La Rioja, Aránzazu Vallejo.

The Conference Centre and Auditorium of La Rioja (Riojafórum), in Logroño, is hosting today the conference “Towards a more responsible Rioja”, during which issues around environmental and social responsibility are discussed. The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva, participated in the inauguration of the Foundation, together with the vice-president and Minister of Tourism, Environment and Territorial Policy of the Government of La Rioja, Aránzazu Vallejo.

About 150 people participate in the debates, especially aimed at those interested in Social Responsibility as a new business culture. The aim of the meeting is to explain to companies in La Rioja what corporate responsibility consists of in its triple environmental, social and economic facet, and its potential for SMEs and the self-employed. The aim is to disseminate the importance of the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in society, and in the businesses of SMEs and the self-employed.

The conference is part of the project “R+R More Responsible Reserve”, corresponding to the Empleaverde 2008 program, carried out by the General Directorate of Environmental Quality and Water Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Territorial Policy, of the Government of La Rioja.

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation stressed, in her speech, that “today governments and citizens are beginning to discover and put into practice the opportunities offered by the development of a new model of economic growth”.

In this sense, Ana Leiva said that from the Biodiversity Foundation “we offer ourselves as a platform of understanding between the generation of wealth and respect for the environment, while serving as a link between public policies and the daily practice of citizen associations”.

Precisely, as the managing body of the European Social Fund (ESF), the Biodiversity Foundation serves as a bridge between employment policy and environmental policy with a double challenge: that the protection and sustainable use of natural resources are the basis for better jobs and more competitive companies, while workers and companies become key actors in the improvement of their environment and in the sustainability of development. In the period 2008-2009, 621,000 euros have been allocated to Empleaverde initiatives in La Rioja.

In this autonomous community, the Biodiversity Foundation collaborates in the development of the project in which this Conference is inscribed: “R+R, a more responsible Reserve”, with the aim of promoting the culture of sustainability in those economic activities that take place in the valleys of Leza, Jubera, Cidacos and Alhama, a territory declared in 2003 by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve and which occupies 24% of the surface of La Rioja.