Hey
guys! We at Raumly strongly believe in collaborative
consumption and the growing
potential of sharing economy.
This week we had the pleasure of interviewing the Director of Food and
Agrarian Policies of the “Fundació Triptolemos” (Barcelona), Mr. Luis González Vaqué.
If you don’t know who he is, let us give you a brief about his glorious
contribution to the Agriculture and food economy in Barcelona, Spain. Finishing
his education in Consumer and Food Law in 1965, he diligently worked to provide
sound legal advice in this field for the next 15 years.
In 1980, it was time for him to step up as Legal Adviser of Prosema,
organiser of “Alimentaria”, the International Food Show of Barcelona. Since
taking that step he has never looked back.
He has worked with numerous leading organizations during his extraordinary
career such as the Council of the European Food Law Association (EFLA), Food,
Plant and Animal Law Services of FAO, in Rome (Italy), and others.
He also has a strong belief in the emerging sharing economy and how it can
change the world for the better. When we at Raumly got to know this, we were not going to leave our chance to know his
views on the same.
That’s why we sat down with him and asked a few questions regarding the
same. It did add to our perspective on sharing economy and gave us the
motivation to dig in even more to bring out the best services on our platform.
We wanted to share the knowledge with you and hence read on to know what we
asked and what he had to say.
1. Could you please tell our readers a bit about you
and when did you sense that Sharing Economy has potential? How did you venture
into it?
My interest in the sharing economy was the result of the first motions and
documents of the European Parliament on this subject. I immediately sensed that
it had a promising future, but that it also posed some problems, for example
with regard to taxes and workers’ rights.
I am particularly interested in the development of this collaborative
economy in the food sector, to which I have dedicated a large part of my professional
career from a legal perspective.
2. What do you consider to be the driving factors for
customers to dive into sharing resources and collaborative consumption?
From a socio-political perspective, I believe that citizens should value
its more equitable character and the more direct relationship between users and
consumers that the shared economy implies. However, getting this message and
information to our compatriots is not easy nor obvious.
3. Do you think the millennial and GenZ population is
more inclined towards sharing resources? If so, why?
They are our future and I hope they know how to amend our mistakes and
improve the current economic system; anyway, although I am generally
optimistic, in some cases there is a deed in young people a tendency to deviate
towards in solidarity and new individualism …
4. So, currently Covid-19 hit the market and affected
businesses. It’s definitely made people skeptical about sharing things. How do
you think this segment could make a comeback or come into focus again?
There are many and very
diverse opinions about what will happen when, finally, thanks to a vaccine, the
current pandemic ends: some think that everything will improve, that people
will be ‘better’, more generous and responsible. I’m afraid not … I think
everything will go back to the way it was before, for better or for worse. The
sharing economy and those who support and/or perform it will have to continue
to struggle against the opposition of some lobbies and the indifference of the
majority. We will still need a long period to inform and convince our fellow
citizens of its advantages.
5. Do you see sharing economy/resources having any environmental
impact as it’s portrayed in the media?
As I have said before, it is necessary to make a great informative
effort; to date, the media have disseminated only partial or fragmentary
information about conflictive sectors of the collaborative economy. I repeat:
it is about informing exhaustively and convincing our fellow citizens with the
veracity of a friendly solidarity economy, effective and at a human level.
6. Any closing remarks that you’d like to add
I will not fatigue of repeating it: the sharing economy must be seen
and understood for what it is, not as it sometimes seems to be, or even in some
cases, it is … a method to take advantage of workers, evade taxes, and so on.
Authenticity, efficient work, advantageous results, and good information should
be the three columns on which to support this new future that we all want.
It was certainly a pleasure to talk to Mr. Luis González Vaqué about the impact the sharing economy can have on our future. We
sincerely thank him to take time out of his busy schedule and do this interview
with us. We are fortunate to know him and stay in touch with him in the future
to build the sharing economy space efficiently .
Through this interview, our team at Raumly understood
the need to inform the crowd exhaustively about the benefits of sharing
resources and collaborative consumption. We also got an insight into how
millennials and GenZ can be elementary in promoting the sharing of resources.
Moreover, how they are carving a niche of new individualism through the sharing
economy. In addition to the above, it also gave us know-how about how under the
guise of sharing economy most major companies might be exploiting worker’s
rights and taxes.
As an emerging sharing platform like ourselves,
we decide to learn and consider new perspectives in this field from visionaries
such as Mr.
Luis González Vaqué.
Now that you have reached the end of the post,
we would leave you with this question, ‘What are your views on sharing economy
and how can we build a sustainable future with it?’
Comment down below your views. We will be glad
to engage in a further discussion on the same.
