The Spanish economy, like most of the world’s economies, is in the midst of a recovery from the COVID pandemic that has been abruptly truncated by the ramifications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Torres and Fernández, 2022).
This paper attempts to analyse the impact of the pandemic, specifically its impact on Spain’s business fabric, covering both corporate enterprises (public limited companies and limited liability companies) and individuals (self-employed professionals). The work presented here is based on the most recent data available in the National Statistics Institute´s (INE’s) central companies database, known in its Spanish acronym as DIRCE, which runs through year-end 2020.
This paper represents an update of previous analysis published not long after the onset of the COVID crisis (Xifré, 2021) for which it was not possible to capture, due to a lack of updated DIRCE data, the direct impact on business demographics.
It also provides an update, using post-COVID data, of two previous pieces of analysis that likewise centred on data gleaned from DIRCE (Xifré 2016, 2019) and can be read in conjunction with other papers with more of a policy focus that make proposals for fostering entrepreneurship in Spain (Huerta Arribas, Nogales Cinca, Salas Fumás, 2021).
23/09/2025
In the framework of the ECOtwins research partnership, the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change at ESCI-UPF participated in a study now published in the journal Sustainable Production and Consumption that highlights the environmental impacts of various sustainable agricultural products.
17/09/2025
The ESCI-UPF UNESCO Chair researcher Sandra Ceballos-Santos discusses a recent perspective published in the ACS Environmental Au Journal within the framework of the SMART-FOODPRINT Project. The paper explores the vital role of certification schemes and ecolabels in closing the gap in sustainability awareness within the seafood sector.
14/05/2025
The team of the European project Greentour, coordinated by researchers from the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF), has published a new article in the journal Sustainability presenting an innovative tool to assess the environmental impact of tourism at both destination and establishment levels.
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