All for the future: Interview with the Executive Board of Greiner AG
In this interview, Axel Kühner (CEO Greiner AG) and Hannes Moser (CFO Greiner AG) look back on 2021, a year that was unique in many respects. At the same time, they provide a glimpse of what’s to come.
Sales revenue exceeds 2 billion euros for the first time in a fiscal year. The bottom line is that 2021 was very successful. What were the reasons for this?
Axel Kühner: The past year was challenging, but highly successful. We generated sales revenue of almost 2.3 billion euros in a truly turbulent global environment in which growth was anything but a given. Rising inflation, supply chain problems, raw material shortages, increased energy and delivery costs: All of this kept us pretty busy in 2021, to say the least. Under these conditions, all our divisions performed outstandingly well and grew across the board. Once again, we were able to leverage our key strength, which is our diversification. It put us in a position where we could more than make up for COVID-19-related losses in some areas, with strong gains in others.
Supply chains are faltering and material costs are rising. To what extent has this affected the Group’s business?
Hannes Moser: As in 2020, 2021 was marked by the massive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has created major challenges for all of us, the entire economy – new hurdles that were previously latent and became acute as a result of the pandemic. The crisis has shown how fragile, how vulnerable the overall economic structure is. Faltering supply chains are a prominent example of the pandemic’s impact on the economy. But, and here we can also take something positive from the crisis, it has shown how flexibly we have been able to respond to the challenges. We have reconsidered traditional patterns, reorganized structures, and broken new ground. This is how we succeeded – and this is a great achievement of all our more than 11,000 employees worldwide – in strengthening all our business areas and achieving this great result.
“At no point during the pandemic did we doubt this part of transformation.”
While the world is still struggling with COVID-19, you are rebuilding Greiner. Why?
Axel Kühner: It is clear to us that as a company with global operations, we cannot rest on our previous successes. We started the comprehensive transformation Greiner is undergoing before the pandemic. At no point during the pandemic did we doubt this path of transformation. On the contrary, COVID-19 has only served to remind us once again how important and correct the path we are on is. The strategic reorganization with the focus on now three divisions, the transformation towards a circular economy, and sustainable value creation, but also our company commitment to social justice, equal opportunities, and diversity are essential requirements of the future that we must now make the right preparations for. This will allow us to remain competitive and keep us on our current successful path.
As a plastics company, you place great emphasis on sustainability. How does that fit together?
Axel Kühner: That can only fit together! As a company that produces plastics and foam, we are fully aware of our responsibility with regard to sustainability. With our products, we are naturally vulnerable to criticism. When images of plastic waste in sensitive and highly vulnerable ecological areas spread around the world, it does not reflect well on our industry. Therefore, a transparent and truthful environmentalization process has been placed at the center of everything we do. The reason for our commitment to sustainability is not to steer clear of the critics. We are deeply convinced that there is a need for an eco-friendly modernization of our economy and society. And right now. This is the only way we can preserve this planet for future generations and make it worth living on. But this is also a responsibility we have to ourselves as a company: our business can only function if the environment is intact. And the only way to get there is to drastically reduce our ecological footprint and establish a circular economy.
To achieve a circular economy, Greiner needs creativity and innovative solutions. Where will you be focusing your efforts in the coming years?
Hannes Moser: Establishing a functioning circular economy is the major challenge Greiner will face in the coming years. The aim is to massively increase the recyclability of our products and reduce the proportion of primary raw materials by substituting them with secondary materials. This is not just our aim, but also what all of our more than 11,000 employees are striving for. This concerted effort, this shared conviction, gives rise to ambitious ideas that will enable us to achieve the goal of having 100 percent of our plastic packaging recyclable by 2025, for example. The circular economy is the benchmark in all our divisions. At Greiner Bio-One, new initiatives are helping to save a massive amount of packaging material. At NEVEON, a pioneering foam return program has just been launched. Or at Greiner Packaging, where developments such as digital watermarking are taking the recycling process to a new level.
Read the full article in the Greiner AG annual report.
