Sustainability – is it just another trend? It’s been much more than that for a long time! Anna Schuster from Sustainability and Innovation Management at HAIX makes sure of that. She wants to make the topic a priority for her colleagues and motivate them to be proactively sustainable in their day-to-day work. For Anna, this is a kind of educational process with powerful repercussions: on our environment, on us as people and in the long term on our wallets too.
New paths to progress
The foundation has already been laid at HAIX: long-term collaboration with selected suppliers, company-owned production facilities in Mainburg and Croatia and an internal repair service. The topic of sustainability is also firmly anchored in the company’s philosophy. “We want to create awareness within the company and pass this on to our customers,” Anna explains. It is particularly important to focus on the company’s core business. So-called greenwashing – the attempt to appear more environmentally friendly through seemingly ecological PR measures – is the wrong way to go.
HAIX stands for transparency and control. Building on this, Anna and the sustainability team provide fresh ideas and new processes. For example, upcycling with the HAIX trainees or working with apprentices on topics such as ‘sustainable leather’ and ‘a deposit scheme for shoes’. It is about innovating at the product, process and company level. “Sustainability has a thousand facets,” Anna explains. And it is precisely this diversity that should be seen as an opportunity, not a burden. “We have already created the foundation. Now it’s time to find and take new paths.”
Do good and talk about it
“We can repair our shoes. But do our customers know how incredibly sustainable that makes them?” says Anna. Enlightening, educating and making sustainability a priority are her main tasks. Only those who reconsider their consumption save money. This is just as true for companies as it is for customers. Anna also has the next generation in mind: “We are training young women and men. Our awareness can be raised to a whole new level as a result.” A thousand facets offering a thousand opportunities – there is no doubt that sustainability is much more than a trend.
