Episode 272

In this episode of the Unscripted podcast, host Sarah Nicastro welcomes back Rainer Karcher, sustainability enthusiast, “climate activist in a suit,” and former Chief Sustainability Officer, who has recently departed the corporate world to start helping companies work toward their sustainability objectives. Rainer shares knowledge on current trends, common missteps, and the reasons why every organization should be invested in this topic.

Rainer is the Founder and Managing Director of Heartprint. He brings over 25 years of IT experience from leading companies like Allianz Technology, IBM, and Siemens AG. His expertise spans support, infrastructure, data centers, service operations, and IT sustainability. For Rainer, sustainability extends beyond environmental protection to encompass a holistic approach aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Agenda, addressing all ESG aspects.

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Full Show Notes

Rainer: So if we talk on sustainability in ESG, environmental, social, and governance, the social aspects then goes into pay gaps, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, all those features. And finally, then the governance aspect goes into the supply chain aspects. What is the code of conduct of a company to work together with throughout the supply chain? So what it definitely means is it is impacting companies all over the world. We do have, depending on relationships and customer scenarios, for sure, always the need to make things transparent. And this is the biggest aspect and the biggest achievement of initiatives like CSRD and some others as well.

Sarah: Welcome to the UNSCRIPTED Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we're going to be talking about sustainability, particularly the sustainability trends that should be top of mind for service organizations and service leaders. I would say in the last 12 to 18 months, sustainability is a topic that has been coming up more and more and more in the conversations I have and the events I attend, not because it wasn't an important consideration before then, but because I think there's an increasing awareness of the opportunities we have in the world of service to positively impact these initiatives and to take action. So I'm thrilled to welcome back to the podcast, Mr. Rainer Karcher, who is currently the Founder and CEO of Heartprint, Inc. We're going to talk a bit about that. Some of you that have been with us a while may remember Rainer. He was on the podcast back in 2022, I believe. And so a lot has changed since then. And I'm happy to have you back and talk a bit about what is going on in the world of sustainability today. So before we get into our topic, just tell everyone a little bit more about yourself, your background, and we'll go from there.

Rainer: Thank you very much, Sarah. And thank you for the warm welcome. It's so great to be back. And it's indeed, it's 2022. I mean, look at that. It's time is flying. This is incredible. For those of you who haven't heard at that time, if you would jump back, you would see me at the big corporate world. In the meantime, I'm Founder and CEO, exactly as Sarah already mentioned, from Heartprint Inc., a company who is a focus on advising and incubating SMEs all over the world in regard of digital and sustainable aspects. So twin transformation is my key focus. In general, I'm an IT person since 27 years. I'm based in Munich, father of three. I do have 46 years currently on my back, and I am trying to put sustainability into every angle of what I do in my private as well as in my professional life. I'm very much interested in helping those who are interested in doing something, which is really working towards sustainability with experience, which I've made in the last couple of years in big enterprises, as I already said. So I did work for more than 10 years for Siemens. And then afterwards for the last nearly two years then for Allianz, so the insurance company and Allianz technology in that part, so the IT version in Allianz. And so this is a bit of me. As I said, I'm really looking forward now to give a bit of new thoughts, new experience, and enhance what we've already spoken about two and a half years back, Sarah.

Sarah: Yes. Going back to, so Rainer not only was on the podcast in 2022, but when we started the Future of Field Service live events, our first year doing those was 2022. And you joined us for a session in Frankfurt. If you remember how incredibly hot it was that day, that's what always stands out in my mind. We were roasting on the top floor of a building with no air con. And it was just uncharacteristically hot for that event. So what stood out to me about you then and still does is just the incredible passion you have for what you do and the energy you bring to this topic. And so you've taken that along with your corporate experience and you've recently begun your own organization, Heartprint Inc., as you mentioned. And so one of the things that is intriguing to me, and we talked a little bit about this recently, is the choice of name. Okay, so can you talk a little bit about the relevance of the name and the importance of a Heartprint when it comes to sustainability initiatives?

Rainer: Yeah, with big pleasure. And indeed, it was a well-taken choice to call my company Heartprint. So quite some time back in 2019, 2020, as I've started my journey in the corporate world at Siemens at that time towards sustainability, I've always looked in a holistic, full, big-picture approach to sustainability. So the SDGs of the United Nations is, to me, at least the most fundamental aspect to look at when we are talking on sustainability. But in fact, if it goes through the current priorities, we are mostly talking on climate crisis. We are talking on footprint, on handprint. So where is the own footprint to be reduced? Where could we improve the environmental impact and lower the damage we take? And the second aspect is to look into handprint aspect through digitalization, through automation. So where is IT able to help and to maybe release some pressure to automate reporting's and all those things? And what are they missing at that time? So in 2019, as I've started that journey, was an emotional connection. Because if we're honest, sustainability is a buzzword in the meantime. Everybody's talking about it. And if you look into the news, there is always big news on, I don't know, flying from the US to Germany is the equivalent of 3.5 tons of carbon emissions. Well, but the majority of people, let's be honest, 90%, 95% of humanity doesn't even know. Is that a lot or is it not? Is it something I can change? But what everybody is understanding definitely is that we have to do something. If you look around, if you see flooding's, if you see wildfires, like we've had been seeing it in beginning of the year in Canada, for example. If you see a drought, if you see the current situation all over the world, then there is an emotion. And that emotion is something we have to transport and translate into action and activity. So I am trying to establish the Heartprint as a third pillar beside the footprint and the handprint to connect both with people and with human beings. If we talk on sustainability, mostly there is environmental protection, but all the activities we do is, in fact, not protecting the environment. It's protecting the foundation of living for us human beings. If we go into diversity, if we go into inclusivity, if we go to, I don't know, accessibility aspects, all of that is improving our lives, the life of humans. And that human aspect comes with heart. And the heart is something which we always have to include to really make things happen. And this is exactly why I display myself already with the objective of who I'm able and willing to work with. And so my future customers, my potential customers should be those who are really interested in making things happen and really changing. And finally, then, with the last comment on that, sustainability is a transformation. And the transformation, which is not only for companies, for the economy and the society, it's for us, for human beings, the biggest challenge in general. We have to change our habits. We have to change lives. Does it mean that we always have to reduce luxury? No, it does not. But we have to do less, that's for sure. And we have to change. And if I do have a passion for it, if I do have an understanding that it's worth it, and there is love within and there is a heart within, then I have the willingness to adopt and to change and to go that way of transforming. And this is exactly what I'd like to do. And like I've said already earlier, I'm hoping for a lot of clients worldwide, which I'm able to help with my experience, which I've gathered over the last couple of years, and to create a vision, to create a strategy, to define a roadmap, and set priorities and get the journey started.

Sarah: I love that. And I think it's a very fitting name for you. I had shared with you when we spoke, what came to mind for me is this is an area, different elements of sustainability are all areas that folks know are important. They know that they should have a mission around or a plan for, right? But those who are making the biggest difference in any areas of this topic are doing so because they have that passion. So they're not doing it just because they have to. They're not doing it because they're expected to or because they need to check a box of having X, Y, or Z strategy, but they're doing it because they see how it matters and why it matters. And I think I had said to you, as you help organizations build their blueprint for their sustainability initiatives, leading with that Heartprint, which I think of as the why, right? Why does this matter? Why is this so important? It's just such a good fit. So awesome.

Rainer: Thank you.

Sarah: All right. So let's talk about some of the current trends in the sustainability world that might be impacting the service realm. So I have a list here. I can read them off and you can just talk a little bit and then we'll see if there's any that I missed. So first is around regulatory pressures.

Rainer: Yeah, that's definitely something which, at least here on the European side, but even going and impacting companies in the US and in the world in general, we do have a so-called European Green Deal, which has been implemented three years ago already. And it's now slightly matching to companies. Depending on their sizes, depending on their revenues over the last next now four years, matching even companies with more than 20 employees and 4 million euros of revenue. So this will go down to the small SME world and as well over that time. It's a regulatory called CSRD, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, and it is replacing the non-financial reporting on the past. So this is nothing completely new. It's just now with a different focus and a way broader and deeper granularity if it comes to sustainability. So it does contain the typical environmental aspects like carbon footprint, like water consumption, air quality. It goes into biodiversity aspects as well but goes into social. So if you talk on sustainability in ESG, environmental, social, and governance, the social aspects then goes into pay gaps, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, all those features. And finally, then the governance aspect goes into the supply chain aspects. What is the code of conduct of a company to work together with throughout the supply chain? So what it definitely means is it is impacting companies all over the world. We do have, depending on relationships and customer scenarios, for sure, always the need to make things transparent. And this is the biggest aspect. And the biggest achievement of initiatives like CSRD and some others as well. On the other side, it does regulate where is investments going into the part of CSRD and that Green Deal is called EU taxonomy. So this is defining what is sustainable investments and how could I do that? I think the equivalent in the US is a bit the Inflation Reduction Act. So this goes a bit in a similar direction. And we do have definitely, therefore, a huge impact to all companies independent of where they work. And I think in particular, as you have to create a transparency on where your emissions are coming from and how you are making progress to further reduce and to get to carbon neutrality in the future, then until 2050 by latest to stick with that 1.5 degree Paris Agreement, which is to those of you who are not familiar with the objective of what science defined. We should limit the global average increase of temperature to 1.5 degrees, which in brackets, by the way, we currently already have achieved and got to. So we have already the 1.5 degrees. So we have to really fight hard to stick with it. But the thing is, to achieve that, you have to look into, for example, travel and the way you travel. So if you have field service, you normally spend a lot of time on the road. You get to your customers, you try to achieve them the sooner the better. So you mostly take not any public transport or trains. You jump maybe into a plane or you take a car and drive there. That has to be reported. So we have to find ways to lower your footprint, meaning maybe changing to better electrical vehicles if it's on short ranges or mid ranges. Maybe changing to sustainable aviation feel if you fly and if you have to. So there is always advantages and alternatives, but we have to focus onto that and you have to be aware on what you get. So this is the part of regulatory for environmental aspect. What I think in the US is quite well known is accessibility. So there is WRC. So the accessibility aspect there is now coming over to Europe. So in that remark, we're quite behind here and in Germany and in Europe. So we have the European Accessibility Act, who is now enforcing companies. Starting in summer next year. So in about a year from now on to make their product, their services accessible for anyone. So that means inclusiveness for blind people, for people with any kind of mental diseases or disabilities. That is something which affects for sure service and field service as well. Because if you have maybe online portals to start with your own service to reset the password or whatever it might be, this is definitely something which affects the field service in general and has very huge impact then to sustainability as well. And then. And finally, there is the aspect of human rights treatments. So in Germany, for example, we've started already last year, the so-called German Supply Chain Act. Now the European Union is enhancing that most likely in 2026 with the so-called CSDDD. And this is the Corporate Supply Chain Due Diligence Directive. And this then focuses on the whole aspect on human rights treatments, children, labor, modern slavery and name them throughout the whole supply chain. And again, if I'm, for example, working with a call center in India, I have to ensure being the company who is providing the service, that even if it's a third or fourth supplier to a tier three supplier. That they are treating human rights and payment, for example, the way it is defined in my local area and my local region. So I have to ensure this is in my own responsibility and not just handed to the supply chain and I just put my hands away. And so this is three major areas where, from my perspective, regulatory is definitely impacting what we currently do and even more in the future.

Sarah: Yeah. So I just want to make a couple of comments for our audience. So one, going back to the point you made about field service and the frequent travel, right? So you mentioned looking into electric vehicles. I know that there's interesting geographical differences there because of the amount of travel or the distance of travel that's common in the US. And also the infrastructure is lagging and catching up. But it is something that is going to be continuing to progress and more and more important to evaluate. But I also wanted to point out this is where we see so many and we've had so many conversations on this podcast about the evolution of service delivery and looking at opportunities to do more remote diagnostics and remote resolution, right? So you can, in many cases, completely avoid travel that is just wholly unnecessary and has just been done because it's the way it's been done. If nothing else, through the remote diagnostics, you can understand what exactly it is you're going on site to do so that you eliminate any repeat visits. So, again, really looking to maximize the efficiency of that travel. Then there are also tools IFS1, that is a planning and scheduling optimization engine that does a really good job of making sure that you're appropriately leveraging your resources. You're minimizing travel. You can set whatever criteria you want to prioritize for companies that are particularly focused on sustainability. You could set the highest parameter to avoid travel or to reduce those emissions. So there's a lot you can do there. The other thing I wanted to say that is relevant to a lot of our service providers is to think about what regulatory pressures your customers might be up against, right? Because there are opportunities to maybe aid in that and have new service offerings come out of your ability to help them meet the guidelines they need to meet. I just wanted to add that. Now, you mentioned an investor preferences. So this is becoming more heavily weighted in investment decisions, which is another really important point for any organization that's going to be looking for investors is, you know, it's taking more and more precedent in those decisions. Another thing to consider is customer preferences. So can you talk a little bit about what we see related to how consumers and even business consumers are looking at the selection of their providers based on this commitment?

Rainer: Yeah, with pleasure. And thanks for that question. And thanks for the addition. You're totally right. So the geographical differences between Europe and particularly in Germany and the US is quite massive. So for absolutely there is definitely different addresses. So to the customer and to the investor aspect, I think in both areas, first of all, the awareness is dramatically increasing nowadays. And at least those customers who do have and if you're talking from B to C now, we do have a huge, huge topic that everyone is talking on. Am I part of the solution? Am I part of the problem? And everyone tries to be part of the solution for sure and tries to take an impact and influence into environmental aspects, into human rights treatments and all those things. So I think there is pressure coming from that angle generally anyhow. But even in the business surrounding B2B, we do have huge companies who do have set their own targets, but they are not able to achieve them if the providers and the companies they are working together with do not. So therefore, it's always a dependency on each other. Exactly as I said it earlier already, companies are able to help their customers, their clients to achieve their targets or they can even go against them. So therefore, I think that's a huge aspect which you always have to think twice about. In addition, I think what comes dramatically from the investor's perspective and now my last station I've been worked on prior to my own company was the insurance world and banking, financial insurance investment. This is quite close from the perspective. What they need to have there is reliability and a long-term planning. So I don't make an investment into a company which I have to be afraid of might not be existent anymore in a year or two. I'd like to understand that whatever they do is resilient. And resilient means in regard of the whole supply chain, if it comes to materials, if it is on maybe a reputational aspects. I do not want to work with a company. I don't want to invest into a company or I don't want to insure a company who I might see a risk that whatever business they have might get into press and media in a negative way, maybe in a year or two and they go bankrupt. And the third is if you just see one of the outcomes of climate crisis is strong weather results. So there is tornadoes, there is thunderstorms, there is flooding, there is massive heat or massive cold periods. And if a company is not at all focusing on those things and just simply working and hoping that nothing will happen, this might turn out against them. And if it just take a where to place a factory, how to set up maybe a service field where there's people maybe working in outside. If there's current temperatures, what we've seen in India or even in the US, I think there is a huge heat wave right now that doesn't work anymore. And this is exactly talking on resilience and prediction of what is coming next and what is maybe happening in five years or in 10. All of that is quite of importance if it comes to investments, if it comes to financial aspects and even the small little things loans, at least here. I don't know for the US market, but I know for the European and in particular German market. Banking is heavily looking who is getting a loan and for what conditions. So those companies who have a clear commitment, a clear sustainability commitment and the target setting and do have resilience and transparency already, they get loans to way better conditions than those companies who do have not. And maybe depending on the amount of investments or of the loan you'd like to get, you don't even get one. So therefore, this is already impacting heavily. And so we have two perspectives and two angles why it does make sense to focus on that.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. What about supply chain?

Rainer: Yeah, supply chain, I think, is a perfect example we've seen already throughout the pandemic. And I think mostly if you just remember that ship, which was in the Panama Channel, just blocking that for a couple of days, which brought a lot of companies really to their limits. This is, again, a matter of reliability and prediction. If I do have an understanding of who are my suppliers and not just the tier one supplier, but throughout the whole chain. And if I have a transparency of what is their impact and what could be an impact, if there is maybe, again, coming back to that strong weather results, if there is companies working in surroundings, mining, for example, where there might be huge flooding's or just temperatures in which people are not able to work anymore under such conditions, that brings my supply chain at risk. If I go to human rights aspect, fashion industry is a perfect example on that. We might still have in mind where there was in Bangladesh, I think, the stitching company who did put weight too many persons and people into one building and it collapsed and a lot of people died. The reputational aspect for those companies who got their clothes stitched there was tremendous. And this is exactly where I think we always have to have a bigger picture in regard of supply chain. We have to first understand who I'm working together with. And throughout the whole thing to the last moment, I have to make transparent. Is that the same values I am able to work with in my own company? I'd like to see throughout that whole aspect. And finally, what we always have to remind ourselves if the world would be perfect, if everything would be right, then we wouldn't have to do something. But it's not. If we just look around, if we just see what is happening all over in the world, then this is a bit of a responsibility. Every company leader, every C-level in a company has an independent of the size of that company, whether it's 50, 500, 5,000, 500,000 employees. You have to take responsibility and have to change.

Sarah: Yeah. The other area we talked about is circular economy and product design, things like that.

Rainer: Yeah. And that's a perfect example in particular for the aspect of service and fuel service. If you design a product in the way that you're first of all able to repair it quite well, and if it's not able to repair it anymore or for safety reasons has to be exchanged, for example, in aviation or in trains or transport, then it should be made in a way that you are able to fully reuse all the materials there. All the minerals, all the rare materials are limited on Earth. We don't have unlimited resources. We weigh more consumed currently than what we have on that planet. And it's very much linear. So we produce something, we use it at the end of the life cycle. We throw it away often to landfill, often exported to sub-Saharan Africa or elsewhere, and we just waste things and dump it. And this is exactly something which we have to change, which will first of all lower the cost. So this is the first thing. So it will have an improvement on financial aspects, economical aspects then as well. Secondly, it will help us to understand our products even better. If we design them in a way that we are able to just dismantle components and separate metals from plastics and from whatever type of things. And we are able then to create, I think, a longevity aspect then to our products as well. If we do have a focus on that, that it's not just like it used to be in the past. Electronical components are mostly the best example. My fridge just recently collapsed on Sunday in the evening. So at a time when everybody wants to have it, it was exactly 10 years and three weeks old. And that is something weird. I don't want to buy a fridge every 10 years. I would like to keep it as long as it can. And this is a bit of product design aspect. So we have to always keep that in mind while designing products. This might be more easy with one product, a bit more easy than with others. But in general, that circularity aspect and longevity aspect, this is two things which we definitely have to put more into focus.

Sarah: Yeah, and it's an interesting conversation. We have a podcast we did a while back that I will link in the show notes on the intersection of sustainability and servitization. When you start thinking about remanufacturing, recycling, and designing for lifecycle versus initial acquisition costs, there's a really big tie-in to this idea of offering products as a service, right? Because when the manufacturer is maintaining ownership of those assets, it makes some of those things easier to do. It's interesting to think about that intersection point. But regardless of what the plans are for the go-to-market of the organization, it's important to be thinking about those things. Are there any big trends that I missed?

Rainer: Well, the big trend currently, in particular, if you look into the digital and IT world, is artificial intelligence. So everyone is talking on AI. Everyone is looking into trying to find real use cases for AI. I think in particular in the service field, I just recently made the experience just myself. As I've started my own company, I had to do some contracts with a mobile phone provider and stuff. And it was a bit of typical German complexity and organizational background things. And I had to call that mobile provider company. And I reached out to, I thought at least at the beginning, a person I'd been talking to. I've explained the situation. And then after about five minutes of conversation, I had a bit of an awkward feeling. And I thought, well, that questions, even if the sound of that voice is very natural, if the questions are quite natural, but the way it's being questioned, this sounds to me scripted. So either there is a person who is just reading a script from screen or it's an AI behind. And I've asked that simple question. May I ask you, and maybe that sounds ridiculous. Are you real? Or are you? Artificial? And the answer was simple. I am an artificial and I'm a computer system helping you right now. And so I think we are just at the beginning of that. I think AI and the capabilities of AI are tremendously changing the way we live, the way we work, what we do and how we do things. In particular, in service areas, if you take the simple first-level support, if you take the simple questions and tasks, resetting a password, getting simple changes done in a contract, adding a new phone number, changing, I don't know, responsible persons and stuff. We should not have people who are distracted in doing that on a day-to-day basis. People should be working on creative things, on innovative things. People should be focusing on those things which really make fun to work with each day. So I think on that aspect there is a huge aspect to improve our lives with artificial intelligence. On the flip side of the coin it always comes with a price. And in particular AI is consuming already a huge amount of energy. So this is tremendous increase what what we've seen in the last couple of months now. Take the example, very tangible, Google yourself and put your own name into OpenAI, into ChatGPT4. Putting it into ChatGPT will bring up more or less the same results than what it is in Google, but it costs you 100 times more energy in ChatGPT than what it is in Google. And this is not just ChatGPT, this is any AI solution. This is already giving a bit of flavor of where we are going. And if you see the current offerings which are on the market, you can just now create video footage, which is perfectly well made. It looks real. It looks like it has been filmed from a huge professional group, but it's just based on a script. You can just enter text and just describe the scenery, what it should look like, and then AI will create the movie footage out of that. The thing is, the energy consumption through that is incredible and it requires a huge amount of compute powers or data centers, which means they need to be built. Currently, the data centers of the big providers are built in Canada and in Spain, in Europe. So both areas, Canada, we've spoken about the wildfires. Maybe not the best idea to put a data center there. Spain is currently running through dryness like never seen before. So in the city of Barcelona, I just recently spoke to a friend of mine who was living there. They are not allowed to water their flowers or their grasses anymore. They're not allowed to wash their cars anymore. It's even a risk that if it stays dry like it is currently, they are turning off water supplies every second day. So we're not allowed to shower anymore. There is still no tap water, because they're just running out of water completely. And this is the second area where there is a data center being built. Huge amount of data centers which require water cooling. So this is the flip side of the coin in regard of energy consumption. A second aspect, and I think the Times Magazine in the US just brought up a report about a year ago about ethical aspects of artificial intelligence and the treatment of, first of all, those people who are entering the data. So this is the one aspect, mostly, heavily underpaid in poor conditions, mental pressure, and then as well because there is people who have to enter nearly everything which comes to your mind and even those things which does not. And then in addition, we do have still a biased situation in artificial intelligence as well. So mostly the coders and descriptors behind artificial intelligence are like I, male, white, middle-aged and academic background. And does that reflect the humanity as a whole? Not at all. The thing is, AI will develop to mostly super intelligence and rapidly going towards self-educating itself without human interaction within the next four to five years. So this is what science currently says. So we have to set the layers and the foundation and the directions now. But, if we don't do it now, then it will go wrong into the angles, which we don't even want to have it. So this is a bit of the flip side. But still, even if it sounds like I'm an enemy of AI, I am not. I am quite sure we need to have it. It's part of a solution, but we have to treat it right.

Sarah: Yeah. No, it's a massive opportunity, but also something we need to be very conscious to use appropriately, to your point, and to protect humanity. Not to sound too extreme, but I think that's the biggest risk, right, is we need to be thinking about how it can augment our lives, not detract from them. Okay, so you said to me recently, there's always an advantage for sustainability. And I love this viewpoint because we're talking about a lot of the trends, but they can be relevant for people for different reasons. And there isn't necessarily a right or wrong reason. But your point is, there's always a reason and there's always an advantage. So can you talk about some of the important advantages that people need to be keeping in mind.

Rainer: Absolutely. And thank you for that question. I think we still have too much of a discussion on whether it's true or not. Is climate crisis man-made? Is it not? Is science right? Is it not? I do have a very clear position on that. But independent of this, go down to the simple things. If you consume less meat, if you drink more water instead of, I don't know, co-course things, this is improving your own health. So this is the first thing. And your own health, if you take the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, good health and well-being is part of sustainability. So this is already a first advantage. So it's extending your life. It's bringing you into a better health situation, making you maybe more mobile. You can just do more things with your kids, with your family, with your relatives. So this is the first thing. The second is, if you stick with that example of eating less meat, that helps the planet. It helps maybe to get a higher quality of meat because you're saving money. If you do not consume meat each day, but only maybe once per week or twice, you can consume the higher quality products, helping then the animals and the animal treatment as well and reducing in many, many aspects, therefore sustainability, negative topics then too. It saves you money. So it has an economical aspect then in addition and brings an overall aspect or take it from a perspective of a company. And now going to the angle of inclusion, we do have, and this is where the US is quite, quite, quite advanced, for example, towards in particular Germany. You've always been way more inclusive in the US than what we've seen here in Germany. We are now putting a focus on that for multiple reasons. So if you take as an employer, those into consideration to be employed, to be working for us as a company, who might be blind people, who might be on the neurodivergent spectrum, people with autism, which we've completely excluded in the past. We've not even provided working environment, which had been capable for those people. If we now do, we are lacking talents tremendously over in the world already. So a company who is more inclusive just has an advantage. It's easier then to get functional situations covered and get people working for you and being happy for working for you. Sticking with the company topic, if you are providing a surrounding where people can really heavily work towards a better future and in that remark, take their maybe private passion and their own drivers into their jobs, into their day-to-day operational aspects, that makes them more happy. So this is a bit of talent attraction, talent retention. People are motivated to stay and go the extra mile, because it's not all about money. And if we're talking on that, if you go to maybe not our age, if you not go to those who already are in 15 or 20 years of employment, but those who are now starting Gen Z or even more Gen A, who will come next, I think the majority of them, they want to work for a company who is not focusing just on a career on, I don't know, car allowance or the next step of salary and advancement. So for them, it is very much important to have purpose. And the purpose comes with sustainability focus as well in multiple angles. So there is an additional advantage. And if you then take just us as human beings, I'd like to provide a surrounding to my kids. And I have three, as I've said at the beginning, which is at least as good as it has been in the past as I've known it or maybe even better. So the advantage to me is to leave something behind which I can be proud of, which I had been actively working towards and which is helping then my kids as well, and not just mine, but kids all over the world. And I'd like to improve it and not damage.

Sarah: Yeah. No, those are all good points. And I think there's so many different lenses to look at this through in terms of the personal benefit and the benefit to the organization of doing these things. The other thing we've talked about before is if you have people who are perhaps less altruistic, there's a lot of areas where we talked specifically about travel with field service. There are a lot of areas where putting action to this focus both improves the sustainability aspect, but also can reduce costs or improve efficiency. And so there's those things as well. And then, of course, we talked about the aspect of competitive differentiation of the customer and investment decisions starting to be more and more weighted toward organizations who are taking real action, et. cetera. So I guess the point is there's so many different ways to look at this that come back to doing something, right, and taking action. I just thought of another question, which is going back to, we talked about the Heartprint piece and why it's so important. But as I mentioned, there's all of these reasons we've talked about today to have initiatives in place. And unfortunately, there are still organizations who are then coming at this from the perspective of checking a box versus a true commitment. And I was just curious to ask your perspective on the current risk of greenwashing. I mean, this is something that has never been good. But I have to think with the growing movement and increased focus. And also from a technology standpoint, we've talked about the realities of transparency, right? And being able to more easily assess who is full of it. So what's the status of greenwashing? Do you think it's going away? Do you think it's still a problem? What do you think will happen as we build toward more and more transparency?

Rainer: So it's a very good question and already upfront firsthand, it won't go away. As long as you do have humans who are intelligent, smart in using the right words, the right visuals, the right transparency in their own perspective and the way I'd like to see it and I'd like to use it, there will always be greenwashing from an outside perspective. That's for sure. I mean, there is the attempt now to regulate even that. So the already spoken about CSRD, so the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive is now being enhanced with a clean claims directive. So, the green claims directive is regulating when are you able, for example, and how do you have to set up your strategy to be allowed to talk on carbon neutral or net zero? You have to, for example, to stick with that, you have to reduce your own footprint by 90% and only 10% is allowed to be compensated and offset with certificates. If you have to compensate more, then you are not allowed officially to use the term net zero. So this is already on its way. So this will be implemented pretty soon. Does it keep all the companies away from greenwashing, surely not. There will always be ways to display things a bit better. On the other side, I think more and more people who are working in those surroundings. So sustainability managers, chief sustainability officers in those company, at least those I know they all have a passion for what they do like I and do you have it. So they are really trying to impact things and they are not willing to greenwash, they are not willing to support companies. They must speaking for 100% all of them know and not. So there is surely so to say, black sheep in between there is even here. But the majority is interested in really taking impact. And I think over time, those companies were still trying to fake and just making a check in the box, they will be very quickly get transparent in comparison with others. So it's always very little companies who are providing a service as a single company, there is always comparisons with others. And you'll always be able to identify those who really make things serious and mean things serious and are really in that transformational process. And those who are just doing the check in the box thing and just throw it away then. So I'm pretty confident if you just keep your eyes open, if you trust them to your own gut feeling to your own heart, if you listen to what they are talking about, then you're definitely identified.

Sarah: Yeah, that makes sense. What do you think are the most significant changes we're going to see in this space over the next 12 months?

Rainer: Yeah, 12 months will definitely be the time in which we'll see artificial intelligence, as already spoken about, dramatically increasing. There will be new technologies arising, which we might not even be able to think about right now. If you're just seeing the latest trends and the development of GPT and open AI, this is changing the world in a massive speed life never seen before. So this is the first thing. Second is, I think we have to have a way bigger focus on resilience and to be aware that things which we've already seen now. So, the effects on climate crisis, which is not going away anymore. So if you're still talking on make things transparent and report the as is, we have to put a bigger focus and we will have to dramatically fast focus on what will happen in the future. So prediction will be one of the aspects where both AI and resilience will have a huge role into it. So we have to adapt to situations. We have to get alternatives. We have to find ways to treat things and to handle things for us being human beings. But as well for companies and for service technicians, for example, then as well, for sure. And I think finally, what I hope and this is, I'm an optimist by heart. So glasses half full for me, not glass half empty. I think the world is connecting more and more. And what I've recently seen is that even those who a lot of people still think there is absolutely no awareness. So mostly what I hear if I'm talking to people, it's like, yeah, but what are we able to do if China is still treating how things is being treated in China? So China, for example, is the country which installed the biggest amount of renewable electricity over the last 12 months. So they've massively increased. For sure, not only for sustainability reasons, but they did. And the second is China is now implementing a third of the KPIs in the measurements of the European corporate sustainability reporting directly. So they're taking it over. They've seen based on our example. It does obviously work out. Well, not only for ecological reasons but for economical reasons as well. It does give advantage as competitors on the market. So they're just adopting it. They're taking it up. And this is, to me, a piece of hope that we as humanity and as in particular the enterprise world and the companies and the SME world, we are connecting globally. We have a global issue. We have a global problem. So we have to treat it global, not as competitive advantage, not with intellectual property, but with collaboration and with working towards one goal together with everyone who's in the world. And I think this is the three main aspects which I will, and I'm knocking on wood that it will make come true in the next 12 months, which will happen.

Sarah: All right, last question is, what are you most excited about in being out on your own with your own organization, helping companies work through this through Heartprint?

Rainer: Oh, wow. That's a very good question. So the one part which I'm really happy is speed. I mean, the big difference between the enterprise world and the SME world is definitely a yes in the enterprise world means yes. But we have to talk and listen and maybe make a concept here and do a pilot case there. So this is always time-wise, very slow and complex through the complexity of the organization. So it's something which was in regard of the speed we have to have for fighting climate crises and advancing and doing good things. This was something which worried me and which annoyed me in a lot of cases. And the SME world, I think in that remark, a yes means yes. And then it means yes now. And a no means no. And this is a bit of what I'm very much looking forward to being confronted with. If I'm able to maybe convince someone to really do things and execute things and they are willing to do it, then that means that we are doing it. And then that means we're doing it now and not in two years or in three. And so this is the one part. And the second is I'm a very straightforward person, as you know me already, Sarah, and the listeners might have identified over the last 40 minutes already as well. And now I'm not under the requirement to politically adjust everything. I say this is what makes me really happy. I'm able to just talk the way I am, to position myself the way I am, to go straightforward and just execute things, the way I'd like to see them and I'd like to make things happen. And this is helping them as well.

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. You're able to really lean into your authenticity. And I'm excited to see how that helps you have an impact on these others and helps them have an impact on their objectives. So really happy for you, excited for you, and really appreciate you coming to share. We will make sure all of your contact details are in the show notes. So if people want to get in touch to talk about their journeys, they will be able to do that. And of course, we hope to have you back again sometime.

Rainer: I would be hoping to, not only in two years, but maybe a bit earlier. And always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you much for the time. And thanks for having me, Sarah. Thank you.

Sarah: Thank you. You can find more by visiting the home of UNSCRIPTED at futureoffieldservice.com. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.ai. As always, thank you for listening.