“With ‘cleantech’ we are shaping the future in a sustainable way.”

The global energy transition requires a secure, economical and ecological power supply. This is made possible by an international network of sustainably operating companies. MR Managing Director Dr. Nicolas Maier-Scheubeck reports on the contribution MR is making in this regard.

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The discussion on sustainability in politics, society and companies has gained considerable momentum in the past decade. What does this mean for Reinhausen?

We encounter the need for sus­tain­able cor­po­rate gov­er­nance under the buzz­words “Social Devel­op­ment Goals” (SDG), “Cor­po­rate Social Respon­si­bil­i­ty” (CSR) and “Envi­ron­men­tal, Social and Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance” (ESG). As a glob­al­ly active com­pa­ny, we have to adapt to var­i­ous reg­u­la­tions of nation­al leg­is­la­tures and polit­i­cal ini­tia­tives.

Our cus­tomers are involved in build­ing and oper­at­ing a sus­tain­able ener­gy infra­struc­ture and have there­fore already com­mit­ted to ambi­tious “Net Zero” tar­gets. Accord­ing­ly, we are already being asked for infor­ma­tion on our com­pli­ance orga­ni­za­tion and our han­dling of sup­pli­ers and sup­ply risks. Ulti­mate­ly, how­ev­er, the media pres­ence of the top­ic of sus­tain­abil­i­ty is also increas­ing­ly influ­enc­ing the behav­ior of employ­ees and applicants—who would want to work in a com­pa­ny that is not seen as sus­tain­able?

Irre­spec­tive of these require­ments, we are com­mit­ted to the UN’s Social Devel­op­ment Goals as a fam­i­ly busi­ness with a cross-gen­er­a­tional ori­en­ta­tion. Con­se­quent­ly, we have embed­ded this in our cor­po­rate strat­egy and are already prepar­ing our first sustainabil­ity report, although we are not oblig­ed to pub­lish it until 2026.

What opportunities does decarbonization offer for Reinhausen’s business?

As the world mar­ket leader, we are proud to have made the oper­a­tion of trans­form­ers not only safer and more eco­nom­i­cal, but above all more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly over the past 25 years with our main­te­nance-free VACUTAP® on-load tap-chang­ers. The sav­ings in insu­lat­ing oil alone make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to conserv­ing nat­ur­al resources over the entire life cycle. In this way, we had already made a sig­nif­i­cant “Scope 3” con­tri­bu­tion for our cus­tomers at a time when sus­tain­abil­i­ty was not yet a glob­al issue. In the mean­time, we have mean­ing­ful CO₂ bal­ances for select­ed prod­ucts, and we are work­ing on estab­lish­ing stan­dard­ized assess­ments for our entire, high­ly durable prod­uct port­fo­lio.

The trans­for­ma­tion of the sup­ply infra­struc­ture dri­ven by cli­mate change requires new answers in many places. Beyond trans­former con­trol, Rein­hausen and its sub­sidiaries have much to offer—such as effi­cient grid con­nec­tion of wind tur­bines, sta­bi­liza­tion of trans­mis­sion grids by means of capac­i­tive reac­tive pow­er, test­ing and mon­i­tor­ing of extra-high volt­age cables, increas­ing the resilience of local grids or local pro­vi­sion of DC grids.

“We place great val­ue on employ­ees deep­en­ing and broad­en­ing their exper­tise over many years in the same func­tion.”
Dr. Nico­las Maier-Scheubeck, MR-Geschäfts­führer

How do internal processes change in this context?

Due to the Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards, which have always been very high, we have a good overview of the emis­sions of our oper­a­tions. We are not an ener­gy-inten­sive com­pa­ny and we con­sis­tent­ly avoid waste and try to recy­cle it. In the area of pack­ag­ing and trans­port, we have sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced CO₂ emis­sions in recent years. In this respect, the high pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and qual­i­ty of our process­es and the use of inno­v­a­tive process tech­nolo­gies already ensure that we work in a way that con­serves resources.

Nev­er­the­less, we want and must con­tin­ue to improve. We are cur­rent­ly work­ing on reduc­ing gas and elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion over­all and at the same time mak­ing greater use of non-fos­sil ener­gy sources. This applies worldwide—most recent­ly, we were able to make our plant in Chi­na inde­pen­dent of the pub­lic ener­gy sup­ply. The new plant in Italy is already equipped with pho­to­voltaics on a large scale, and this will soon also be the case in Dres­den. The fact that the num­ber of busi­ness trips as well as the on-premise work­ing of our employ­ees have both fall­en sharply, and that dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with cus­tomers, sup­pli­ers and employ­ees has increased accord­ing­ly, also reduces the CO₂ load of our process­es on bal­ance.

In this respect, we are try­ing to over­come log­i­cal con­tra­dic­tions, since the aim is to ensure the unin­ter­rupt­ed oper­a­tion right­ly demand­ed by our cus­tomers, while at the same time reduc­ing emis­sions and increas­ing eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy. In view of a dynam­ic envi­ron­ment of legal reg­u­la­tions, geopo­lit­i­cal chal­lenges and tech­no­log­i­cal change, this is no easy task over­all. How­ev­er, new prod­ucts such as ECOTAP® VI are already demon­strat­ing how this can be achieved.

Do family-owned companies like MR naturally act more sustainably than corporations listed on the stock exchange?

As a medi­um-sized fam­i­ly busi­ness found­ed in 1868, we are deeply ingrained in think­ing for future gen­er­a­tions and act­ing in accor­dance with the rules—otherwise, accord­ing to our self-image, entre­pre­neur­ial inde­pen­dence can­not be main­tained across gen­er­a­tions. Par­tic­u­lar­ly in terms of sus­tain­able coop­er­a­tion with our cus­tomers and sup­pli­ers, we attach great impor­tance to employ­ees deep­en­ing and broad­en­ing their exper­tise over many years in the same func­tion. In list­ed com­pa­nies, there is some­times a lack of patience for this or it is even unde­sir­able in terms of com­pli­ance. For this rea­son, many employ­ees see them­selves as mem­bers of the Rein­hausen fam­i­ly and iden­ti­fy strong­ly with our cor­po­rate goals. And this nat­u­ral­ly includes sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, it should not be over­looked that many list­ed com­pa­nies also suc­ceed in effec­tive­ly anchor­ing the issue of sus­tain­abil­i­ty in their cor­po­rate policies—we have a lot in com­mon with these large com­pa­nies and can ben­e­fit from each other’s coop­er­a­tion.

“Tech­nol­o­gy for the ener­gy turn­around must be suit­able for future gen­er­a­tions.”
Dr. Nico­las Maier-Scheubeck, MR-Geschäfts­führer

What is the significance of sustainability against the backdrop of the acute shortage of personnel in the economy?

In the opin­ion of employ­ees and appli­cants, Rein­hausen has long been one of the most attrac­tive employers—not least because of our high­ly praised train­ing and con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion pro­grams. In addi­tion to our long­stand­ing suc­cess, secure jobs and fam­i­ly atmos­phere, the company’s pur­pose itself also con­tributes to this. Our mar­ket-lead­ing solu­tions for con­trol­ling load flow and pow­er qual­i­ty help a steadi­ly grow­ing world pop­u­la­tion to enjoy attrac­tive liv­ing con­di­tions with­out bur­den­ing future gen­er­a­tions. Our “Pur­pose” is sus­tain­able, MR has always deliv­ered “Clean­tech” in the best under­stood sense. This is expe­ri­enced by our employ­ees, cus­tomers and sup­pli­ers alike—sustainability and clean­tech com­ple­ment each oth­er per­fect­ly.

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