In exchange with companies, Daniela Ortiz Avram, Martine Andraos and Katharina Salomon from the Institute for Business Ethics and Sustainable Strategy (IBES) at FHWien der WKW explored the capabilities required for the transformation to a more sustainable economy.
Over the past three years, the City of Vienna Competence Team “Change for Corporate Sustainability” (TransformS) has developed practical models to support companies in actively and successfully meeting the challenges of sustainable management. The researchers focused on sustainable innovations in companies and the associated supply chains.
Valuable exchange with companies
In exchange with Austrian companies such as VERBUND AG and Metalltechnik Vils GmbH, the necessary dynamic capabilities were analyzed and further developed. Nikolaus Egyed, Transformation Lead at VERBUND, describes working with the TransformS competence team as “a good opportunity to examine our transformation process at VERBUND from a scientific perspective and to compare it with the experiences made by other companies. The interviews and the concluding workshops resulted in very helpful recommendations that were immediately incorporated into our mission for more sustainability.”
For Rainer Keller, Managing Director of Metalltechnik Vils GmbH, participating in TransformS was “an absolutely valuable experience, as we came across aspects of sustainability that we would not have discovered in our day-to-day work, or would have noticed too late. The approaches we gained at an operational level will also be very useful for our company in the future.”
Valuable findings for education
As part of the project, which has now been completed and funded by the City of Vienna, sustainability competencies were established in the curricula of all study programs at FHWien der WKW. In addition, a qualification program was designed for FHWien der WKW students to train specialists as sustainability change agents. The voluntary qualification program promotes the individual skills of students at FHWien der WKW, enabling them to take responsibility for shaping sustainable change in organizations.