News

• It is the first project under the cooperation agreement that both institutions signed last year to address the megatrends of the future: Industry 4.0, Sustainability and the Environment, and Demographics and Lifestyle.
• The agreement includes four study cases that look closely at the environmental sustainability strategy of four successful family businesses: González Byass, Enhol, Grupo Calvo and Actiu.
• With this initiative, Banca March, a leading family-owned business, confirms its commitment to sustainability as part of its business model.

The project analyses the experiences of the González Byass bodegas (Jerez de la Frontera), Enhol group (Tudela, Navarra), Calvo group (Carballo, A Coruña) and furniture manufacturer Actiu (Folla de Castalla, Alicante), four Spanish family-owned businesses that, like Banca March, have put sustainability at the forefront of their business development.

This initiative will put a spotlight on these experiences in various media, demonstrating how Spanish family-owned businesses address the sustainability issue, through best market practices in terms of social investment and creating social and economic value. The evidence shows that sustainability is core to their business strategies and is intrinsically tied with their family values.

It is the first project under the cooperation agreement, signed between Banca March and the IE Foundation at IE University last year, to address academic content-generating projects on Industry 4.0, Sustainability and the Environment, and Demographics and Lifestyle. These are the three megatrends that Banca March identified in 2019 with strong potential for growth in the coming years. As a result, the bank launched the Next Generation strategy, which consists of investment proposals in these main trends. In March 2021, it had reached more than €500 million in managed assets, which is 395% up year-on-year.

Each project under this agreement is based on one of the three megatrends, gaining a profound insight into the family-owned businesses involved and allows them to be analysed from different angles. 

Banca March CEO José Luis Acea said: “In line with the philosophy that has inspired Banca March since the outset – shared growth with customers, employees, shareholders and society as a whole –, we continue to press forward with that commitment, knowing that profitability must go hand-in-hand with sustainability at the core of the business model. Being a bank that specialises in wealth management and family businesses, we have taken on the challenge of developing new forms of responsible and sustainable investment and financing. Under this project, it is an honour to work with the IE Foundation to promote the examples of González Byass, Enhol, Calvo Group and Actiu, family businesses that are paving the way for other companies to follow so that together we can build a more integrated economic and society”.

“These four cases show that sustainability is not a trend or a public relations stunt for family-owned businesses, it is an essential part of their identity. That's why generation after generation have placed sustainability at the forefront of their strategy.  By looking at these four family-owned businesses, which have been at the avant-garde of sustainability, we can find out how the different generations have adapted sustainability to their evolving business model”, explained Cristina Cruz, Academic Director at the IE Center for Families in Business of the IE Foundation of IE University.