Interview with
Christoph Loos and Heinrich Fischer
Hear from CEO Christoph Loos and Chairman of the Board of Directors Heinrich Fischer on successful crisis management and their expectations for the industry in the coming years.
Michelle Ponto, Journalist
We are looking back on a year where markets are rebounding or have totally rebounded. I’m curious how Hilti has fared during this time.
Michelle Ponto, Journalist
What is something that you’re most happy about when looking back at 2021?
Michelle Ponto, Journalist
Speaking of important topics: climate change and sustainability. These are words that are on many companies’ minds. They are working on different solutions. Where do you see Hilti’s responsibilities in this? What is Hilti doing? What are your sustainability plans?
Christoph Loos, CEO
I mean, first of all, I want to say that we fully acknowledge that companies like ours have to take on more responsibility to master the global climate crisis. We cannot lean back and hope that the politicians solve that for us. We have to act, both as individuals and as a company. We have significantly raised our ambition in terms of the environmental footprint, in particular on CO2 emissions, and also on our way to manage our business in a more circular way. And we’ve made good progress. On CO2, for instance, we already have reduced half of the emissions that we have had in 2019, before the crisis. Now, 50 percent of that probably still comes from COVID-19 and our people not being able to drive to customers and jobsites and business travel, et cetera. But the other 50 percent are already permanent. And we’ve also made a lot of progress on the circularity topic. So we are well on our way to achieve the ambition that we have set to be CO2 neutral by 2023 in our own operations.
Heinrich Fischer, Chairman of the Board of Directors
I think you’re right, Christoph. Being CO2 neutral in our own operations, this is only the first step. A much bigger lever is in the optimization of our worldwide supply chain. We also aim, together with our development and supply partners, to reduce the so-called Scope 3 emissions. So we can do much more and we will. At the same time, we are happy to see that the global rating agency EcoVadis has awarded us a gold rating, a rating that only the top 5 percent of the 85,000 globally assessed companies have received.
And next to these great Hilti Foundation projects, we have also launched our corporate volunteering initiative Engaged Beyond Business, where all our employees can invest time and company money for their own local community projects. We are really happy to see that, already, 6000 of our employees have participated in the first year of this program.
We are well on our way to achieve the ambition that we have set to be CO2 neutral by 2023 in our own operations.
Christoph Loos, CEO
Michelle Ponto, Journalist
Digitalization is a topic that has been booming since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago. How is digitalization going to impact or affect Hilti with its products and services?
Michelle Ponto, Journalist
This year, you announced a leadership change within the company that spans across the Board of Directors and the Executive Board. Why this change? Why now?
Heinrich Fischer, Chairman of the Board of Directors
That’s a good question. You know, a leadership change at the top of a company is always a very critical phase. A phase where many things can go wrong. And we have been preparing for this change over the past four years to assure a smooth transition – with only qualified internal leaders for the executive roles and a mix of external and internal leaders for the board of directors.
Now, for me personally, it will be my last year with Hilti, looking back on 14 exciting years.
Heinrich Fischer, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Michelle Ponto, Journalist
Ranging from the sustainability plans that you have, the digitalization and now these leadership changes, it looks like Hilti is really looking forward into the future. So my next question is to you – as my final question for today: What’s in store for Hilti for 2022?
Christoph Loos, CEO
We have invested significantly into our global sales force in order to achieve our ambition of double-digit sales growth also next year. And that will keep us busy. While this is happening with our global team, our management is now going through this intense process of reviewing our Group strategy. More than 200 people are involved in our own operation globally, and the aim is to develop our plan until 2030.
Heinrich Fischer, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Yes. And in addition to this, we will also see much progress in our digital efforts as well as in our sustainability agenda. And of course, we will make sure that the various handovers, as a result of our generational change, will go smoothly.
Watch the entire interview here:
