Leather Cluster Barcelona appoints a new president

The General Assembly of Leather Cluster Barcelona, which met on 23 July in an extraordinary online session, unanimously elected Bernat Vilarrubias Solanes as the cluster's new president for the coming years. Vilarrubias, manager of the company Igualadina de Depuració i Recuperació SL (IDR) and a member of the cluster's board of directors since its creation, succeeds Carles Riba, president for the past four years.

Bernat Vilarrubias has a career and experience of more than forty years in the leather sector and, over the past twenty years, he has been a key figure in the commissioning and management of the IDR industrial wastewater treatment plant, which uses a direct biological system to treat the wastewater of Igualada's tanneries together with part of the town's urban water and that of other industries. Under his management, the treatment plant has met its sustainability targets and has made a decisive contribution to improving the competitiveness of the Catalan tanning industry, turning the IDR plant into an international benchmark in water treatment and waste management.

At the assembly, chaired by Jordi Vidal, executive director of Leather Cluster Barcelona, the members expressed their recognition and gratitude to the outgoing president, Carles Riba, acknowledging his work at the head of the cluster during an important stage in which its scope of action and representation was extended, starting from a solid base of companies in Igualada and broadening it to companies across the leather industry value chain throughout Catalonia.

The members unanimously restated their commitment to sustainability and the circular economy as a strategy for strengthening competitiveness, and therefore reaffirmed the importance of the ongoing project focused on management in order to optimise the recovery of waste and resources of organic origin as high-value materials.