Janina Bauer Of Celonis: Five Strategies Our Company Is Using To Tackle Climate Change & Become More Sustainable
An Interview With Martita Mestey
We are still at the beginning: not everyone has understood the urgency of the challenge. Not everyone wants to participate or change behaviors. There is also fear — so it takes a lot of sensitivity, creativity, and courage to try out new things, design incentives or engage people.
As a part of our series about how companies are becoming more sustainable, we had the pleasure of interviewing Janina Bauer.
Janina Bauer is the Global Director of Sustainability at Celonis, the global pioneer and leader in process mining and execution management. The Celonis Execution Management System (EMS) reveals and fixes process inefficiencies businesses can’t see, by integrating real-time data, process intelligence and targeted actions to unlock billions in corporate inefficiencies and to reduce carbon emissions.
After building up the Celonis Academic Alliance team to democratize process mining education and partner with global educational institutions, she took over the global sustainability program. In her role, Janina steers sustainable product and co-innovation projects with customers and partners to operationalize sustainability in every business process using the Celonis Execution Management System. She also oversees ESG reporting and drives diversity and employee engagement initiatives, as well as the Celonis Aspire program for an integrated and holistic ESG strategy.
Before joining Celonis, Janina worked in various areas at Siemens Healthineers, Random House Publishing and the United Nations, among others. She is passionate about hyper-growth and transformative thinking at the crossroads between technology and sustainability.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I have always been passionate about working with products or services that have a positive impact on people, and I have been fascinated by how different types of organizations are shaping them. I obtained a Master’s degree in Business Administration with a focus on sustainability at a time when sustainability was still more niche than mainstream. The program allowed me to learn about the decisions businesses can make to prioritize their bottom line, top line, and the environment.
I have experienced different types of organizations and industries in my career: corporations and small agencies, medical technology and media. The most formative experience, however, was the time with the United Nations, where I was given the hands-on opportunity to develop research, collect data, and perform analyses on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals implementation, which aims to address the global challenges we face, including poverty, climate change, and environmental degradation. Seeing first-hand the blueprint for achieving a more sustainable future but also all the challenges of such complex global undertaking left an incredible impact on my career and served as a guiding light for how I lead sustainability at Celonis today.
Currently, as Global Head of Sustainability at Celonis, I am responsible for driving the company’s sustainability agenda, providing thought leadership and strategic direction across all departments with my global team, and capitalizing on opportunities to amplify sustainability and act on our core value, “Earth is our future.” This includes not only internal action towards net zero operations but also innovative product development to support our customers in operationalizing their sustainability goals. I represent the company in external forums, partnerships, and stakeholder engagements.
What is the mission of your company? What problems are you aiming to solve?
As businesses change, processes get complex. This complexity creates fertile ground for
value opportunities — opportunities to find invoices paid twice, goods shipped but not billed, orders canceled due to unnecessary stock-outs, emission-intensive supply routes, as well as non-compliant suppliers. These are all chances to save millions of dollars, meaningfully increase customer satisfaction and operate more sustainably.
The average enterprise runs their business processes — which include buying, selling, paying, collecting, shipping, and so on — over complex, fragmented systems. As a result, they struggle to unlock potential and operate with enormous inefficiencies, negatively impacting their top line, bottom line, and green line. Our Execution Management System, powered by a market-leading process mining core, enables organizations to better visualize and analyze the complexity and interconnectedness of their operations — eliminating billions in corporate inefficiencies, providing better customer experience, and reducing carbon emissions.
Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to address climate change or sustainability? Can you give an example for each?
At Celonis, we make sure that any sustainability initiatives we have in place are authentic and have a genuine impact on our stakeholders. And we put that to action through internal sustainability initiatives as well as empowering our customers to reach their full potential in their sustainability transformation.
One of our core values is “Earth is our future.” For us, this starts with operationalizing our sustainability strategy internally.
First, we keep our house in order: Based on a smart, accurate and automated measurement of our greenhouse gas emissions, we have committed to set near and long-term goals in line with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) Net-Zero Standard, which is the most globally recognized and ambitious framework for target-setting. To reach these goals, we analyzed our emissions by scope and found that the main sources are Procurement, Business Travel, and Employee Commuting and Remote Work. So we tailored our actions towards clear focus areas that are also visible to our employees and other stakeholders to engage them meaningfully. Take Procurement as an example: Last year, we set up a Supplier Code of Conduct and Supplier Rating Process. We integrated technology powered by IntegrityNext and Ecovadis to monitor supplier sustainability performance. These tools are helping us to make decisions with decarbonization in mind throughout our value chain.
Second, sustainability is a team sport. Our work is a collaborative project by multiple teams across the organization, including the dedicated sustainability teams, who directly report to the executive team with updates, KPIs, and feedback gathered from the entire company to ensure inclusivity and authenticity. This process also builds an inviting culture for employee participation where everyone can feel passionate about sustainability and that they can make a real difference. Engagement is a very important KPI for us in this regard. In 2021, we introduced Global Impact Days: Celonauts can use three days a year to engage in meaningful activities for our communities and the planet. We had Celonauts helping in food banks and community services, engaging in education, or running hackathons to bring innovative solutions to our customers.
But there is more, as we can use our product to scale our sustainability impact: Externally, customers often approach Celonis with ambitious goals to source all material sustainably or reach net-zero emissions, which is hard to operationalize due to process inefficiencies. Our audits of our customers’ processes have generated staggering findings, such as 25% of all shipping containers are shipped empty every single year and 10% of food is wasted before it even hits the table — over 50 billion pounds per year in the US alone. These statistics call for Celonis’ Execution Management System (EMS), where the software can ensure that the value chain processes that also lie at the heart of sustainability strategies, from responsible material sourcing to developing and transporting products in ways that reduce waste and emissions. Our dedicated product team builds specific and innovative solutions to enrich process data with carbon emission data, as well as intelligent recommendations for actions. The applications are easy to implement and create fast win-win value within the core processes of our customers.
A joint survey conducted by Celonis and IBM found that more than half of Chief Supply Chain Officers would be prepared to sacrifice profit to achieve sustainability gains. But with the right technology like Celonis EMS, it doesn’t have to be an either/or scenario.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
Today, more than half of global business leaders view sustainability as a growth driver. Organizations have started to realize the importance of embedding sustainability into their core processes and practices, but few companies have access to the right information and data to really operationalize their sustainability strategy. The result is that sustainability often remains secondary, is perceived as too complex or laborious, or is managed as a silo. But sustainable operations require transparency, streamlining, focus on value drivers and reduction of unnecessary inefficiencies — all things we also want in a profitable business — and go hand in hand with long-term cost reduction, as well as value enhancement through unlocking of new potentials. When businesses have an end-to-end picture of their processes, they’re able to see what’s working, what needs to be changed, and which inefficiencies can be eliminated, empowering them to execute not only in a sustainable way, but in a more profitable way.
We help our customers achieve carbon reduction potential in the supply chain, assess spend based on supplier ESG performance, or reduce distance-traveled (for logistics companies) — all to reduce operational costs and supply chain emissions. As I mentioned earlier, Celonis finds and fixes inefficiencies. So these all start with helping our customers understand how their businesses really work.
A success story here: Celonis worked with specialty chemical provider Archroma to quantify the carbon emissions of more than 150,000 shipments and explore opportunities to reduce the emissions by potentially up to 6%. Using the Celonis Execution Management System, Archroma was able to map the carbon footprint of its global shipping network and identify the major drivers of its emissions. As a result, Archroma was able to identify opportunities to bundle shipments and explore potential reduction in both cost and emissions. The company also identified ways to improve customer relationships by sharing data related to emissions associated with its customers’ orders.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
I have always known that sustainability is a complex undertaking, but building a program from the ground up in a very fast growing dynamic company like Celonis was and is a special undertaking:
1. It takes a village and the village is larger than you think: sustainability comes with a very broad and often personal definition that cannot be determined by one team alone. Many people are needed to succeed, many topics are often associated and brought in, such as social impact & education, resilience, compliance, etc. — and it can get fuzzy. Listening and managing stakeholder relationships is therefore an essential and clearfocus for the company.
2. We are still at the beginning: not everyone has understood the urgency of the challenge. Not everyone wants to participate or change behaviors. There is also fear — so it takes a lot of sensitivity, creativity, and courage to try out new things, design incentives or engage people.
3. There are some skills that I didn’t necessarily learn in depth during my studies but now need every day: Complex stakeholder management, managing up (especially towards Executives), excellent communication, design of incentive systems, management of trade-offs and tensions; and constant shifting between strategic work and operational execution.
4. Integrating your products into your strategy is a unique motivator: If product proudness defines your culture, finding a way to create a positive impact with your product brings your employees along and forms a movement. It also integrates your customers and partners early on — and it is a lot of fun to learn from your own challenges internally, exchange with customers and then build products on top that have real value.
5. You work on a topic that is very fulfilling, for which there is no global solution or textbook. This can be exhausting and frustrating as well. Taking care of one’s own mental health and that of the team is the hidden core task of a manager in this area.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I’ve been very fortunate throughout my career to always have mentors in the right places, who, with their (also critical) view of my strengths and my potential, have pointed me in the right direction, opened doors or given me new perspectives. I was trusted and taught that a career does not always have to be straightforward, but can also be a unique mosaic that only makes a lot of sense after several elements. I am also thankful for the many peers and friends who learn with me, celebrate successes and master challenges on a daily basis. And all my success was and is possible because of a strong and fulfilling partnership in my personal life.
If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Sustainability, especially when it comes to decarbonization, is still too often secondary, as it feels more expensive, more complex… but it has to become the standard if we really want to achieve our goals and prevent more severe damage from climate change. We need a “sustainability by default in every step of every process” movement, in which we trust ourselves to choose the sustainable option for action — in business processes but also individually.
What holds us back is often the fear and perceived cost of change. During my career I have seen again and again the impact and power that hands-on experiences, knowledge transfer and education have. The doors that are opened, the behavior that is triggered, what it does to people. The form can be many things: books, studies, training, online courses, in person workshops… I know from my own experience that behavior often changes as a result of past experiences. I would like to enable many people to have experiences that show the cost of non-acting in comparison with what happens when we save the planet and shape society in a more positive way.
Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?
“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.”
It is one that speaks to me in the context of my sustainability work and also inspires my ideas for future movements and solutions: It often requires courage.
Personally, as a still young female leader in the technology sector, I often find myself in situations that are unfamiliar, completely new or in which I am the first or only woman in the room — going your own way; developing and using your voice; asserting yourself and consistently implementing ideas requires courage; willingness to take risks; and self-confidence on a daily basis. The fear may remain, but the potential that I can unlock is greater.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
If you’re interested in learning more about the work Celonis is doing in sustainability, be sure to follow the company on LinkedIn or have a look at the website. You can also find me on LinkedIn talking about all things sustainability.
This was so inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Janina Bauer Of Celonis: Five Strategies Our Company Is Using To Tackle Climate Change & Become… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.