Materials Services
Materials Services
#GreenJobs - Helene Leneschmidt is committed to sustainability in the materials business
Our goal at thyssenkrupp Materials Services is to achieve climate neutrality. Every day, numerous experts support us in our efforts to reach this goal by working on future technologies, sustainable processes, and green supply chains. Helene Leneschmidt works in one of these green jobs. By working as Governance Sustainability & Environment Manager at thyssenkrupp Materials Services, she is committed to achieving greater sustainability within overarching corporate processes.
What is the job of a Governance Sustainability & Environment Manager? Helene Leneschmidt explains: “In abstract terms, my colleagues and I of the Governance team take care of the corporate and technical development, management and implementation of guidelines, requirements and processes that affect the company's management.” The expert and her colleagues work with externally prescribed or self-defined requirements.
For a materials distributor the size of thyssenkrupp Materials Services, the gradual conversion to sustainable processes is a mammoth task that Helene Leneschmidt and her colleagues tackle daily.
Sustainability & energy management – a multifaceted profession
What excites Leneschmidt most about her job is the variety and the many different topics she deals with in her daily work. That is because the team considers many aspects: "We take care of a wide range of topics - such as quality management, operational excellence, energy and environmental management, and much more," explains Helene Leneschmidt.
Within her team, the manager is the contact person for the topics of sustainability, energy, and environmental management. She is in constant contact with colleagues in Germany and abroad. After all, at the biggest mill-independent materials trader and service provider in the western world, there are plenty of parameters that can be turned and processes that need to be optimized to drive the company's sustainability forward.
"My activities are very varied. Both the wide range of topics in the area of sustainability and the networking function were very appealing to me," says the expert, who has been working at thyssenkrupp Materials Services for seven months.
With 380 locations, thyssenkrupp Materials Services is located in 30 countries. Getting through the individual sites and processes was one of the biggest challenges for sustainability expert Helene Leneschmidt.
thyssenkrupp Materials Services delivers materials to locations all over the world. This mammoth logistical task brings its complexity. Anyone who wants to make such a process and supply chain more sustainable has to face the task of looking through the small-scale processes, and that in itself is a major challenge.
Making sustainability a career
To get off to a flying start as Helene Leneschmidt did, young professionals and those just starting should have analytical skills as well as coordination and organizational abilities. "Initial contact with corporate sustainability issues can also be an advantage", explains the expert.
Key function on the way to a green future
However, it is precisely this networking function, which makes Helene's job so complex. She coordinates various corporate sustainability issues. These include the annual recording of energy and environmental indicators, energy efficiency and climate targets for thyssenkrupp Materials Services, and calculating product-related greenhouse gas emissions within supply chains. A lot of tasks but not enough for Helene: "I recently became involved in setting up a sustainability network within our organization," the manager says.
One project that is particularly close to Helene Leneschmidt's heart will have a particularly positive impact on processes at thyssenkrupp Materials Services. With colleagues from various functions and departments, the expert is currently working on setting up a process to calculate the carbon footprint of all products along the entire supply chain. "This helps us to make the environmental and climate impacts within our supply chain visible and to reduce CO2 emissions with suitable measures," Leneschmidt explains. This transparency will also be important for more and more customers in the future.
Challenge: Making 380 locations greener
The biggest challenge in her job? "To thoroughly grasp and fully understand the complex corporate structure of thyssenkrupp and its organization," says the governance expert. "As a materials trader, Materials Services has around 380 locations in more than 30 countries, some with different business models." To make those processes more sustainable, Helene needs to understand the organizational structures. The larger the company and the more complex the supply chains, the more difficult this mammoth task becomes. Therefore, it is no wonder that more and more companies are looking for experts like Helene Leneschmidt.