THE SUSTAINABILITY INTERVIEW
The days of sustainability as a nice-to-have or an add-on are gone. As companies tie their sustainability strategy to risk mitigation, resilience and adaption, the leaders of the pack are going beyond mitigation to value creation.
Siemens is positioning sustainability as a core business driver, embedded across its global operations and customer solutions. Central to this transformation is Dr. Eva Riesenhuber, Global Head of Sustainability at the leading technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, mobility and healthcare.
The business backbone of sustainability Siemens’ sustainability ambitions are broad both in scale and complexity, and Eva’ s remit of strategy, data, governance and operational execution reflects this.
Eva’ s career path spans law – in which she gained her PhD and practised in the US for 11 years – mergers and acquisitions, finance, venture capital and investor relations, a breadth that now shapes her approach to sustainability as a business and systems challenge rather than a standalone function.“ Positive impact scales when sustainability delivers clear return on investment,” she says.
This commercial framing is central to Siemens’ strategy, particularly as climate and resource pressures intensify.
“ In an environment that is hotter, harsher and faster than anticipated,
“Positive impact scales when sustainability delivers clear return on investment”
Eva Riesenhuber Global Head of Sustainability Siemens
we need to look at adaptation and resilience holistically if we want to help our customers navigate all these challenges,” she says.“ That requires understanding the business, understanding geopolitics, understanding the return on investment in everything that we do in sustainability.”
Two system changes shaping industrial transformation Two fundamental system transitions are currently reshaping the industrial landscape, and Siemens is responding by centering its sustainability approach around these global shifts.
The first is the energy transition, shifting from fossil fuel dependencies to renewable energy, electrification and improved energy efficiency. The second is the move from a linear economy to a circular one, replacing“ take, make, waste” models with resilient closed-loop systems. These transitions are interconnected and must be addressed simultaneously.
siemens. com 5