The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Sonia Castañeda, highlighted today at the opening of the conference “Smart Cities, ICT applied to the sustainable society model” the role of smart cities in improving the quality of life of citizens and in economic, social and environmental development.

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Sonia Castañeda, highlighted today at the opening of the conference “Smart Cities, ICT applied to the sustainable society model” the role of smart cities in improving the quality of life of citizens and in economic, social and environmental development.

The conference, organised by the Spanish Confederation of Information, Communications and Electronics Technology Companies (CONETIC), was attended by experts and authorities with the aim of raising awareness of the new trends and opportunities that are opening up in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector within the framework of smart cities.

In her speech, the director of the Biodiversity Foundation stressed the contribution of ICT as a strategic sector that allows progress towards a more sustainable economy. “In recent years, there has been an increase in jobs in economic sectors linked to the environment that have been at the forefront of a future investment scenario that can contribute to the recovery of European economies,” he said.

As an example, Sonia Castañeda highlighted the ETICS project developed by CONETIC within the framework of the Empleaverde Programme in order to take advantage of the potential of ICT to promote sustainability in its economic, social and environmental aspects.

Through the Empleaverde Programme, the Biodiversity Foundation “supports and recognises the work of entrepreneurs whose projects are committed to sustainability and respect for biodiversity, contributing to the development of the green economy”, explained Sonia Castañeda. Since its creation, the empleaverde Programme has allowed the execution of 220 projects, to which must be added those of this last call that are in the evaluation phase.

“We favour green employment, we believe in entrepreneurship and, therefore, we favour the creation of companies whose work translates into social results, linked to job creation and, of course, into concrete and quantifiable environmental results”, he said.

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation added that green jobs contribute to protecting and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity, “which we must not forget is one of our greatest riches”.

Sonia Castañeda thanked the commitment of this sector to the environment and reiterated the support of the Biodiversity Foundation to ensure that “the environment and sustainability are the bases for creating better jobs and more competitive companies and, on the other hand, that workers and companies are key actors in the improvement of the environment and the sustainability of the development we seek”.