Strategic HR Circular economy at Siemens
We’re
all in it
together
Partnership working at Siemens
I wanted to
test out if HR
could really
play a role
in something
that typically
isn’t HR’s role
By JENNY ROPER
A less-enlightened business
might have wondered if it had
made the right HR director
appointment. It was two weeks
before former talent and resources
director at Crossrail Valerie Todd
officially started as HRD of Siemens
UK and Ireland in October 2018,
and she was attending a two-day
‘hackathon’ event hothousing new
initiatives. There were lots of ideas
being bounced around, with each
executive saying which they’d like
to sponsor.
And yet it wasn’t D&I nor
digitalisation Todd put her hand up
to lead on. Rather it was an area not
traditionally associated with HR at
all: the circular economy.
“I said: ‘that’s me! That’s mine!
I’m not quite sure what I’m going to
do on it yet… but I know there’s a
role we can play’,” recounts Todd.
“Sarah Jones, environment
manager was there and talked so
eloquently on it that I was
immediately engaged.”
Jones has been with Siemens
for more than 10 years developing
the company’s approach to
environmental sustainability,
resource use and efficiency. And she
knew as soon as Todd expressed
interest that this – despite not a
commonly-found partnership at
most businesses – would be a match
made in heaven.
“I can’t deliver a circular economy
for the whole of Siemens,” she says.
“It’s got to be a massive transition
from how we do business now to
how we do it in the future. So we
need to enable our broader
employee base to make decisions
with the circular economy in mind.”
A business risk
But what precisely does Siemens (or
anyone else for that matter) mean
by circular economy? The idea first
cropped up around 1966, when
economist Kenneth Boulding
started raising awareness of an
‘open economy’ with unlimited
input resources and output, in
contrast to a ‘closed economy’
in which resources are tied and
remain as long as possible part of
the economy.
Where historically resources have
been used in a linear way of ‘take,
make and dispose,’ a circular
economy is a model governments,
organisations and individuals are
increasingly turning to in order to
combat the dangerous rise in waste
being produced as the global
population increases, and to
conserve precious finite resources.
Siemens’ own circular economy
strategy was initiated in October
2018, spurred by the realisation that
where historically it had focused on
improving recycling rates, this only
addressed the end of the production
and use phases. This was a risk to
Siemens’ business as well as the
environment, the company realised,
as efficiencies would bring cost
savings and make the business more
profitable and competitive.
Which all sounds very
sensible and worthy. But
translating this strategy into
day-to-day reality was never going
28 HR October 2019 hrmagazine.co.uk
Photography: Leo Wilkinson
has enabled HR to engage
employees with sustainability
and the circular economy.
/hrmagazine.co.uk