Taking a holistic approach to responsibility – Interview with Felix Jahn from Schwalbe

7 questions for Felix Jahn, Head of the Sustainability Department at Schwalbe

1. what characterizes responsibility at Schwalbe?

Our vision is to lead the way in the development of environmentally friendly products.
We are pioneering innovations in the circular economy and taking responsibility for future generations.
For example, we take back our used products via specialist retailers and recycle them in the production of new inner tubes and tires.
We will be presenting the first tire produced from the recycled material from the tire recycling process, among other things, at Eurobike this year.

2. how would you describe your mission when it comes to responsibility?

We try to take a holistic approach to the issue of responsibility, which is why we have defined four areas of action for ourselves: One is the product field of action – this includes environmentally friendly products, but also our recycling systems.
We have the company field of action; this includes our cradle-to-cradle building here, for example, as well as the promotion of our employees and our mobility concept.
We have another important area of activity – social commitment.
As a family-run company, we have strong roots here in our region, but we also look beyond our own backyard, as our supply chain is global.
And that’s why our fourth area of activity is the supply chain.
We are very proud of our Fair Rubber project.

3. what next fields of action have you defined at Schwalbe in the area of sustainability?

For us, the next few years will be characterized by significantly reducing emissions here locally, but also particularly in our global supply chain.
At the same time, we are trying to offer our recycling systems throughout Europe and continuously increase the use of renewable and recycled materials.
And, of course, we want to create transparency in our supply chain.

4. the supply chain is part of the 4 pillars of responsibility at Schwalbe.
What does responsibility mean with regard to your supply chain?

We work on a transparent and traceable supply chain to protect our stakeholders and meet our high standards.
We have a strict code of conduct to ensure human rights, labor and environmental protection.
We actively seek dialog with our stakeholders, with the partners in our supply chain, in order to know what is happening where.
A good example of this is our involvement with Fair Rubber e.V. – the Fairtrade association for natural rubber.
By working together, we have been able to enter into a close exchange with the small farmers of natural rubber in order to improve their working and living conditions bit by bit.
We are also very proud of the fact that we have been working with our production partner, Hung A from Korea, for 50 years.
We produce in Indonesia and Vietnam and are very well informed about the situation on the ground and know all the processes.
We work together with VERSO to transfer this self-image to our suppliers.

5. how did you become aware of VERSO and why did you choose the VERSO Supply Chain Platform?

We got in touch with VERSO (formerly sustainabill) two years ago via a customer and were able to get to know the platform very well.
In the meantime, VERSO has established itself as the industry standard in the bicycle industry.
That’s why it was very clear to us that VERSO would be our partner when we really got going with the topic of responsibility in the supply chain.

6. how do you rate the VERSO Supply Chain Platform and which functions do you find particularly useful?

VERSO enables us to reduce our workload enormously because manual documentation is largely eliminated.
And that helps us in the digitalization of our Green KPIs.
The platform is very easy to understand and intuitive to use.
Above all, the visualization of the supply chain helps us to build an understanding of our partners.
With VERSO, we can easily record and evaluate data and export it even faster.
In addition, VERSO Support is always there for us and can support us.
It is also interesting to note that as a user of the VERSO supply chain platform, we basically have a dual role.
We are both a registered supplier on the platform and a VERSO customer.
In other words, we serve our customers on the platform with our company data and at the same time request company data from our suppliers via the platform so that we can gain insight into our supply chain.

7. what are your plans for the future in the area of responsibility and what role does the supply chain play in this?

We already collect and reduce our emissions here on site, but we are well aware that the majority of our emissions are generated in the supply chain.
That’s why we want to work even more closely with our suppliers in future to make progress, take responsibility together and achieve our goals.
With regard to our supply chain, this also means that we want to address the relevant upstream suppliers after surveying our Tier 1 suppliers.
We take a holistic approach to responsibility.
This starts at the beginning of the supply chain, through production and use to beyond the life cycle of the product – closing the circle.