The path to sustainability

Sustainability initiative at valantic

Philipp Grittner, consultant at valantic in the area of logistics management, gives us an insight into the topic of sustainability at valantic. In the interview, he talks about the idea of making valantic a more sustainable company and the path to sustainability.

Hello Philipp, it’s nice that you can take the time to talk to us, please introduce yourself briefly!

My name is Philipp Grittner, I’m 27 years old and I’ve been with valantic Supply Chain Excellence for almost 3 years. Here as part of the logistics management team, I can help my colleagues with many different topics in the field of logistics. The tasks range from process analyses to large-scale implementation projects and strategic network planning for our customers. These challenges are exciting every time.

In addition to my work as a consultant, my colleague Marco Fuhr and I started to put the topic of sustainability on valantic’s agenda about 2.5 years ago. Since then, we have been fully behind the topic and are trying to inspire as many of our colleagues as possible.

That sounds like a project that’s close to your heart, what does it involve?

You can certainly say that. 😊

Our idea is to make valantic a more sustainable company, both for our employees and through consulting services for our clients. From the outset, we knew that we had to combine these two aspects and that we needed a team to deal with the many and varied areas of sustainability. In addition to the ecological aspects, which are the first thing most people think of when they think of this topic, economic and social aspects also play an important role. I am pleased to say that the team now consists of 16 colleagues. Together, we define topics that we believe contribute to the further development of valantic. The projects range from ecological and social tasks, such as proper waste separation in the office, to electromobility and the company’s carbon footprint.

Our current focus is on establishing valantic as a consulting company involved in sustainability issues. We have already conducted some intensive workshops with interested students, and we were able to acquire the first project.

What prompted you to create the initiative and the team?

I believe that Marco and I are, in a way, idealists. For both of us, the issues of environment and sustainability are really close to our hearts. We are focusing on this issue because we are convinced that we have the opportunity here to make a real difference and move forward. And we have this chance at valantic. Special thanks to our sponsors Martin Hofer and Dr. Falk von Falkenhausen, the two Managing Directors of valantic Supply Chain Excellence. Both of them are very supportive of this issue and leave us great freedom in its design.

What have been your highlights so far and what can we look forward to in the future?

There have been a lot of highlights. If I have to pick one, I would like to mention the climate neutrality of valantic Supply Chain Excellence. To this end, we first determined the CO₂ footprint of our Competence Center, and now we compensate the emissions annually with the help of a partner. Thanks to the transparency we have achieved, we have been able to identify the largest emissions drivers and take measures to reduce them – some concrete examples are the inclusion of electric cars in our car policy, the use of green electricity in the building, and the creation of incentives for using public transport. We are proud of that!

In general, I would like to invite everyone who is interested in this topic and would like to get something started to approach us. We will be happy to help you by sharing our experiences thus far, and we look forward to attracting other supporters.

Thank you for the interview, Philipp!