Talking sustainability with our Board of Directors
Exploring people, passion, change.
Exploring people, passion, change:
Talking sustainability with our Board of Directors
These days, sustainability is on everyone’s lips, yet, is it more than a buzzword? Our Board of Directors discuss what makes Hager Group’s approach a real commitment.
Cate Shaw (moderator): Daniel, would you like to get the ball rolling by sharing with our readers just what a difference Hager Group is making? And what exactly do we mean by sustainability?
At Hager Group our ambition is to transform and grow in the long term rather than maximising profits in the short term. This is what being a sustainable organisation is all about. For a family business, sustainability is about thinking in generations and transmission to the next generation. The challenge is, of course, translating concepts into real and measurable actions. Philippe will most certainly agree with me when I say making money is, of course, something that we have to and want to do as without it we would not be sustainable. Yet what counts is how we go about it.
I couldn’t agree more Daniel. Yes, it is of course important to make money, but as you say, it goes much further than that. We must be in line with our convictions too. Let’s not forget that sustainability is especially important for the family business that we are – we need long-term thinking and careful financial planning.
I’d like to rebound on what you said about measurable actions, Daniel. It is important to be transparent about what we are doing and the impact it will have. The company’s vision is to make life on this planet safer, cleaner and more enjoyable. To bring this to life, we are supporting electrification – one of the key vectors to becoming more sustainable. We want to stay in business and lay the foundations for the future. We must remain modest and refuse greenwashing. Our employees recognise this, and want to work for an employer of choice, who walks the talk. The current situation and regulations mean that we must act now. Depending on the choices we make, we may lose some business, which we will simply have to accept. In any case, we must take our customers and partners with us on our sustainability journey.
So, in other words, we want to do things properly for the right reasons by adopting a sustainable approach when interacting with employees, partners etc. Mike, do our customers really expect us to continuously reduce our ecological footprint and offer more energy-efficient solutions?
Yes, and for many different reasons. Not a day goes by without me being asked what we are doing to improve our carbon footprint and do I drive an electric car. The discussions we are having about sustainability are the same discussions that our customers are having. How can we do things better and be more sustainable? We provide energy-efficient solutions for our customers, who in turn provide them to their customers. Our role is to help consumers become greener consumers. The impact of what we are doing here is three-fold; there is an impact on the business, ecology and people. We need to balance this carefully to get as many people on board as possible – our employees, partners, customers and society around us.
Yes, exactly, the more people we have on board, adopters, the better the dynamic for long-lasting and long-reaching impact. Franck, Mike just mentioned our employees. What is your take on being an employer of choice?
We want to be and are an employer of choice. Sustainability is about looking into the future and building tomorrow with our current and future colleagues. This means knowing how to retain the talents we have and attract new ones with an objective to increase our diversity and inclusiveness. I think that generally speaking, people want transparency, being transparent is part of being trustworthy. Our values, being trustworthy and a family company reassure people. We are honest about what we do, who we are, and we provide a safe and dynamic working environment. We are committed to our vision of making people’s life on our planet safer, cleaner and more enjoyable. When we talk to candidates, we understand that they are not expecting a company to solve every issue, they want to work for a company that walks the talk, is truly engaged, takes tangible actions, provides flexible working hours, interesting projects, training and development plans. We do all of this, I am proud to be able to honestly tell them that we are a company that is changing to shape the future.
Talking of change, Daniel, can we really change? What needs to change?
Clearly, we need to reduce CO₂ emissions. Regulations will help us do this as they provide a frame in which to work. Something equally as important is people and their behaviour. You know it really doesn’t take that long to change a habit, making changes is accessible to everyone. Take our environmental sustainability approach – Blue Planet Commitment – it is designed to help every employee in the group revisit their way of doing things and questioning processes. For example, this could range from using less raw material in production, rarely using paper, rethinking how we travel, adapting the heating and lighting systems…. These actions and new behaviours will be beneficial for society as a whole.
Yes, a type of knock-on effect. But for it to really take, there needs to be passion and conviction too. Afterall, this report is titled People, Passion and Change.
Exactly Cate, when we are speaking about sustainability, it’s really about opening our mind to what is happening around us. Having passion and conviction for what we do will help us move forward. There are many colleagues within the company that have benefitted from training to become experts in areas that they didn’t initially study for. It is their passion that helped them take the step. They have totally changed the way they work, they are passionate and committed, many of them feature in this report. Mobilising our own people is essential. We can’t achieve any of this if we don’t have the best people and we provide them with the skills and empowerment they need to reach our full potential.
Customers continue to choose us because they trust our solutions and we have worked together for a long time.
I’d like to chip in here and pick up on the topic of change. Change is synonymous with innovation and in our industry that can mean technology, too. We need strong skills and capabilities in these domains. Unfortunately, to be totally transparent with you, we are short on material scientists, this can cause bottlenecks when we need to resolve critical situations. We can and must concentrate on these skill sets in recruitment to really drive innovation into our product offer. It’s a way, isn’t Mike, of being more credible with our customers, proving a product offer that is in line with our Blue Planet Commitment? This will be a change, a challenge, a risk to take… really daring to go into new territory and do something new.
Of course, it’s important to produce innovations, it’s also as Franck said, about trust and engagement. Customers continue to choose us because they trust our solutions and we have worked together for a long time, we must leverage this. And I can tell you that today, when people know you work at Hager Group, an electrical company, they ask what we are doing to save energy, reduce CO₂ emissions, be more sustainable, more innovative. Sustainability is, as we said at the start – the word on everyone’s lips.
So, Philippe, how do we budget for innovation and sustainability?
It is a commitment from the company to invest in this. There is no question about this. We’re all committed, some actions are costly, some less so. There are mandatory investments, there is no way around this. It is our duty also to spend our money as best as possible. There are many initiatives to be budgeted, this in particular concerns Ralph and his teams. Budgeting for sustainability is no different to the normal way of budgeting, we ask for a quotation, make bids for tender and then try to get the best value for our money. The main point is that there is no discussion about the fact that we want to invest money in this.
Let me elaborate on what Philippe just said about initiatives. In 2021 we analysed our carbon footprint, so we now know what we need to measure and how we can have a direct impact on for example decarbonisation – one of the main angles of environmental sustainability. We are able to measure the indirect impact of our behaviour, our products and our suppliers. In 2022 we will be sharing with employees exactly how we can make a direct impact by changing our energy-consumption behaviour on site, how we will be using and saving on greener energy and changing the way we organise ourselves. Local production and sourcing will become much more important than in the past. Actions will have a visible impact, providing evidence we are changing.
Taking of evidence, what tangible figures and actions do we have so far?
Many of our buildings have been producing their own energy for the last ten years or so. We use photovoltaic panels, there are 440 on the roof of Hager Forum in Obernai. Our car policy incorporates the CO₂ consumption of the car. Hager Energy (E3/DC) provides solutions to optimise resource and energy consumption. A further example is a recent difficult decision we made based on CO₂ emissions. Do we use generators in production knowing that they produce a lot of CO₂, or do we push to find alternatives? The second is, of course more expensive, but from an environmental perspective the only solution as it is more sustainable in the long term. It’s what I said earlier about forsaking short-terms profits for more long-term nobler goals.
Today, our awareness of the importance of our living and working environment is more heightened than ever. And never before have we had such an opportunity to have a positive influence. To wrap up, I’d like to quote one of the people who was interviewed for this report: “We’re not looking to be the best in our industry. We’re looking to be the best for the planet in our industry.” Which aligns perfectly with what you’ve just said Daniel.
Thank you very much, gentlemen, for participating and sharing your thoughts with us.