Ilunion boosts environmental performance with EIB Advisory support

Lucia Morón knows each shift at ILUNION’s industrial laundry in Seville has a double impact. “Every towel, every sheet we wash represents not just clean linen, but an opportunity for people like me to build a future,” she says. One of the 40% of ILUNION's employees with a disability, Lucia embodies ILUNION’s commitment to social impact through inclusive employment and running a good business.

“Working here means being part of something bigger – a company that values its people and the environment,” she says.

But running a laundry company comes with high energy and water demands. To reconcile those needs with its environmental commitment, ILUNION partnered with the European Investment Bank to finance up to €60 million of energy-efficiency refurbishments across its industrial laundries and buildings in 2024. In 2025, EIB Advisory provided technical support, designing energy efficiency audits and a comprehensive water efficiency and recycling strategy for the company’s laundry facilities.

“If we want to stay true to our values, we need to find smarter, greener ways to operate,” says Ana López de San Román, ILUNION’s sustainability, ethics and alliances director. “Reducing energy and water use isn’t just good for the planet – it makes our business stronger and more resilient.”

With more than 40 000 employees—17 000 of whom are disabled—ILUNION is Spain's largest employer of people with disabilities. (It also operates in Portugal and Colombia.) The company’s business model combines social purpose with profit, operating across six sectors, including industrial laundries that provide textile and uniform services to hospitals, hotels, and other firms and institutions.

While the energy audits will help identify and prioritise practical renovation projects, the water strategy will guide ILUNION in optimising water use, supply and wastewater management across its operations.

A specialised consultant carried out the energy audits across ILUNION’s industrial laundries with funding from the InvestEU Advisory Hub. Supported by EIB Advisory, the consultants analysed the facilities' energy consumption and proposed targeted energy efficiency measures, quantifying their investment cost and the expected energy savings. The EIB Advisory assignment has been structured to ensure that specialised consultants work closely with the ILUNION team, providing hands-on training in energy audits to equip ILUNION for future investment decisions.

Because most laundries were set to implement similar measures, the first site visit – to a representative facility in Seville – served as the basis for a standard energy audit for all the other sites, from calculations to outcomes. It also created a template for future audits. Individual audit reports will be prepared for each laundry or for measures common to a group of facilities, following a template agreed upon by ILUNION and EIB Advisory.

“The EIB Advisory team helped us see where energy is lost and where small investments can make a difference,” says López de San Román. “These upgrades will reduce our carbon footprint and save costs, while allowing us to be more competitive and reinvest in our people and mission.”

For EIB Advisory, supporting ILUNION aligns with the Bank’s strategic priorities: advancing climate action and social inclusion.

“ILUNION proves that inclusion and sustainability go hand in hand,” says Patricia Fernández, the EIB Advisory expert leading the assignment. “By helping improve operational efficiency, we’re enabling the company to reinvest savings into what truly matters – creating quality jobs for people who face barriers to employment.”

EIB Advisory's water efficiency and reuse strategy for ILUNION’s laundries started with eight representative sites across Spain as models. The team collected detailed data on water and energy consumption, washing processes, equipment, wastewater quality, environmental compliance, and customer requirements, and reviewed available technologies and automation solutions.

The strategy assessed the internal reuse of water in the laundries and external reuse for municipal purposes, including cost-benefit analyses, space, and operational requirements. A preliminary technical plan integrated operational, maintenance, and staffing considerations, giving ILUNION a clear roadmap to reduce its consumption of fresh water and preserve precious resources in water-stressed Spain.

“EIB advisory’s guidance ensured that our initiatives were technically robust and aligned with our sustainability objectives,” says Joaquin Ingelmo, ILUNION's chief financial and economic strategy officer.