People of our environment talking about the effects of COVID-19

We have launched a series of actions in which we have collected stories and reflections by some of our clients, collaborators, and professionals that we closely relate to at NOMON. We have been discussing how the crisis of the coronavirus pandemic has affected them, either personally and professionally. We believe this to be useful and nourishing, because we can learn from one another’s experiences.

The first perspective is from Pau Vila, Transformation Manager of LC Paper, a company with over 140 years of experience pioneering the manufacture of paper with zero-CO2 emissions. This firm from Girona aims to create the most sustainable paper in the world.

“This crisis has changed our order of priorities. Unfortunately, we have all become aware of the fragility of life. And this has made us reflect over the consequences of our actions.”

We also took some time to talk with Enrique Baeza, a collaborator, artist, and friend of NOMON.

Through his project Reality is Spam, Enrique experiments with the boundaries of personal and mass communication. He does so in a context in which language –which is limited in itself– has become an unhelpful instrument. Interested in promoting a new type of language, Enrique Baeza produces slogans that tackle the paradox of unfolding their own meaning.

“You don’t necessarily have to invent anything new. You have to emphasise whatever you are already doing. Corporate Social Responsibility should not be anecdotal, but rather become the very centre of what we are giving back to society.”

Marcos Guasch is the CEO of Texia, a century-old family-run textile industry established in Barcelona since 1917. It manufactures and markets textile products for the hospitality sector under its MY DRAP and ROLLDRAP brands, using a unique technology.

Due to COVID-19, and in order to adapt to this unexpected situation, Texia took advantage of its industrial capacity to transform their business activity. In record time, Texia set out to manufacture 4 different types of hygienic, textile, reusable masks for universal use, certified as complying with the UNE-0065 standard with a Bacterial Filtration Efficiency, BFE, of 96%, and at an affordable price for all.

Reflecting on the coronavirus crisis with NOMON, Marcos Guasch told us what it meant for his company to face this new scenario.

“This crisis is going to teach us to be different people. Texia continues to firmly and clearly reaffirm its commitment to sustainability in manufacturing our masks. Under no circumstances is this idea going to change.”

We also had the opportunity to listen to Jordi Rovirosa, architect and general director of the Concep Project Office since 2010.

Concep is one of NOMON’s partners. Having transformed over 2000 pharmacies, the company is a reference in the retail consulting field, specialising in Pharmacy.

“This confinement is giving us the opportunity to think about who we are and who we want to be, the opportunity to think about oneself. These times teach us interesting lessons.”

Ginés Alarcón, director of Blackpool Digital, also shared his insights with us.

Blackpool Digital is a digital marketing and communication consultancy, specialising in relationship-building in the digital realm for businesses and organizations.

“Digitisation has moved 10 years forward as a result of this pandemic. We witnessed overnight how companies had the indispensable need to communicate digitally.”

Isabel López, interior designer, founder and creative director of IsabelLopezVilalta+Asociados pondered about the influence of COVID-19 in workspaces, and on how we will be interacting in in the future.

IsabelLopezVilalta+Asociados is an architecture and interior design studio with over 35 years of experience in the field. Their work is characterised by the pursuit of excellence –both in the resulting projects and in their execution– for which the firm has been nationally and internationally awarded.

“Office-spaces are going to change significantly. “Open spaces” will give way to smaller offices in which we will meet with the teams once a month. The rest will be done through digital communication.”

Our last guest in this section is Sonia Monclús, Cluster Manager & Knowledge Broker at BCD (Barcelona Design Centre), which is a benchmark in our field.

At BCD, design is understood as an unquestionable transformation factor in areas of competitiveness and sustainability, with a clearly positive impact on society, in line with the United Nations’ Goals for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030). BCD promotes innovation, creative talent, and projects Barcelona’s design in the world. In addition, they constitute a design-focused strategic partner that creates joint value across companies, entrepreneurs, professionals and entities.

“COVID-19 has acted as an accelerator of the trends that we were already foreseeing. In my opinion, the current key trends are: sustainability –environmentally speaking and also in social terms– and digitisation. In fact, they both add up.”

Finally, we will be wrapping up this section with some thoughts by Sison Pujol, general director of NOMON. She reflects on the notable changes occurred during these recent months which, in her opinion, have come to stay: We are going to be more digital, more socially aware and more sustainable.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants who, during these complicated and anomalous days, have given us some of their time and shared their insights with us, as well as all our friends and followers who were interested enough to leave their comments in this section.

Thank you very much to all!

“I am left with this last reflection: it is time for minimalism. Not necessarily understood as an aesthetic trend, but rather as a more responsible way of living. That’s the reason I feel optimistic.”