Raul Garcia Hemonnet
The URJC, through the high-performance open innovation research group, OPENINNOVA has started a project together with the consulting firm 'The Good Footprint' through which it is intended to measure compliance with the circular economy in the tourism sector, through the analysis of various indicators.
According to Eva Mora, one of the project's researchers, together with Rocío González, Sonia Medina and Marta Ortiz, the initiative has two phases, first of all "analyzing how the circular economy has been measured in all previous literature, establishing a list of indicators and take it to the tourism sector”. After preparing this list or classification, the next phase is "to compare these indicators with those present in the ARC 360 matrix, prepared by 'La Buena Huella'", indicates the researcher.
The ARC 360 matrix is an international regulation supported, among other institutions, by the United Nations Agency for the 2030 Agenda in Spain, which serves to help establish and develop a comprehensive competitive regenerative activity. This tool, created by 'La Buena Huella', serves to "technically show that a business activity generates more positive than negative impacts in the territory and in the community in which it is implanted", explains Víctor Fernández, co-founder of this consultancy strategy of applied sustainability. The matrix "evolves the concept of sustainability to matters such as good governance, environment, economy, society and culture, taking into account a total of 416 indicators," adds Fernández.
The project carried out by the URJC researchers intends, by making this comparison, to see if there are possible improvements in the consulting firm's matrix and, if so, to apply them. From there, "we would use that improved matrix" to compare it in real cases, says Eva Mora. These real cases can consist of seeing how the circular economy criteria are applied in a luxury hotel or in a specific destination and how the actors involved apply that 'circularity'.
This project, which is in its incipient phase, is carried out within the framework of the agreement that the URJC and 'La Buena Huella' signed a few months ago.