We are pleased to share an insightful interview featuring Harald Kogler, CEO of our member HIRSCH Servo Group, originally published on July 29, 2024, by Carinthia.com. With over 50 years of international experience, HIRSCH Servo Group has established itself as a market leader in the particle foam industry, with sustainability and ecological responsibility at the core of its operations. In this interview, Mr. Kogler discusses among others the importance of these values and the role of the circular economy.
With over 50 years of international experience, the HIRSCH Servo Group is a leading processor and market leader in the particle foam industry.
In this interview, CEO Harald Kogler gives an insight into why sustainability, resource conservation and ecological responsibility are at the heart of his actions, how competitors in Austria are becoming a family, and why the circular economy and Carinthia are closely linked.
The HIRSCH Servo Group is Europe’s largest polystyrene insulation and packaging manufacturer. Can you give us a brief insight into the main steps on the way to becoming the market leader?
Kogler: The HIRSCH company is over 50 years old. Initially, it dealt with polystyrene, or Porozell as it is known in Austria, and packaging. Then the insulation segment was added. Building on this experience, the company has developed its own machines and technologies, and has become the world market leader for machine technologies and process engineering for particle foams. Our position in the insulation sector has only developed in this way in the last ten years. The focus was originally on Germany, our main export market. In 2017, we became a major player with the acquisition of insulation plants in Germany and doubled our turnover with this one move. That was a big and courageous step for us, and of course the right one. We subsequently expanded the insulation segment in other countries as well, due to its huge importance as a key factor for the Green Deal and the reduction of CO2 emissions. This is because 70 percent of the existing building stock in the EU is in poor condition and needs to be thermally refurbished.
You once said that “promoting customer-orientated corporate management with a deeply environmentally conscious approach” is at the heart of your efforts to remain among the best of the best in the years to come. What does this environmentally conscious approach look like?
Kogler: My entire career I have always been at the forefront in companies and for me the most important task as the managing director or CEO is always to focus on the market and the customers. In our case, production is key. We currently have 36 production sites in ten European countries, which must be state of the art and constantly evolving. The key aspect here, as with any industrial operation, is the emissions, meaning any dust, noise, waste and emissions that are produced. My mission is to have the cleanest operations and avoid any unnecessary emissions into the environment. So, in our case, I don’t want to see a single plastic bead on the neighbouring properties or even outside a production hall. That is why we have joined the Operation Clean Sweep (OCS) project, which promotes the most responsible use of plastics possible. We owe it to our environment. Our site in Glanegg is also a good example. When I joined the company ten years ago, it left a lot to be desired, but we have gradually expanded and modernised it. Today it is still an “old” company, but it is considered one of the best managed in the entire polystyrene industry in Europe.
To what extent is sustainability more than just a key buzzword for you?
Kogler: Unfortunately, sustainability has become a buzzword. You can look at sustainability from a philosophical or purely technical point of view, but it’s usually a mixture. As a technician, I see a company as a closed system with systemic boundaries, as a “box”, if you like, and something goes in there such as raw material, energy, water, and something goes out as a product. This can be quantified at every stage, steps towards optimising can be defined and in the end it all leads to a sustainability report. As a technician, this is simple and logical to me, because from an engineering perspective, a company only has a future if it looks to the future. Just ticking all the boxes on a list is not enough for me. We must constantly improve, and we need continuous investment because a company cannot be run competitively today by managing what already exists. Sustainability is therefore also a key issue that we need to work on continuously.
Plastics technology has developed into an economic strength and innovation driver in Austria. In your experience, what opportunities for economic growth and cooperation does Carinthia in particular offer?
Kogler: Plastic is a material that has become an integral part of our lives. However, this plastic has an increasingly negative reputation because it is an oil-based product, does not decompose in nature and has been handled very carelessly. Careless in the sense that people were not aware of the value of this material and simply threw it away. As a result, plastic can be found everywhere, unfortunately also in nature, but that’s how society deals with it. At the same time, technical plastics are an integral part of our everyday life, our lives and our technologies, and they cannot always simply be substituted. That is why it is so incredibly important to create a functioning circular economy. Society also has a role to play here: we need to collect plastics, we need to separate them and then recycle them – this works.
We are lucky that we have some leading companies in Carinthia. These flagships in Carinthia are mostly characterised by families or individuals. When you hear of plastics in the Völkermarkt area, for example, they are immediately associated with the name Werner Kruschitz. All the companies that exist there, such as PreZero or Steinbeis, have something to do with him because he has been involved in plastics recycling all his life and has created a recycling cluster as a result. There are other examples, such as Europlast, which started in the 1990s and has developed into a great injection moulding company. These developments show how well growth can work in this area.
What are the particular strengths of the regional plastics industry?
Kogler: We have pioneers and technology leaders in Carinthia and this is a strength that should be utilised. There are networks and customers involved and because of this, we are known beyond the country’s borders for these companies. This is also proven by former company relocations such as PreZero and Steinbeis, where someone from abroad has become aware of something that is available here: know-how and resources in the form of companies and employees. And that is crucial in my view. It is also beautiful in Carinthia, of course, and though beautiful places can be found all over the world, you don’t often find a network like this with people who can identify with the issue and advance beyond it.
In your opinion, which contact points, developments or subsidies are particularly helpful for companies moving into the region?
Kogler: Of course, I am “biased” because I was a founding board member of the Carinthian Economic Promotion Fund (KWF) and managing director of BABEG, the Carinthian Agency for Investment Promotion and Public Shareholding. Despite this, I believe that BABEG is a professional organisation that provides the best possible support and service to companies that want to come to Carinthia. This is also a top first port of call by international standards. With a focussed team, the KWF takes care of the subsidies, if companies are eligible, and is intended more for small and medium-sized companies and the R&D sector.
A functioning circular economy requires good partnerships and a strong network. Can you give us an insight into how this cooperation works in Carinthia and what the results are?
Kogler: A good example of this is the “EPSolutely” project led by Fraunhofer Austria. This is a supra-regional project that we have rolled out throughout Austria. Together with partners from all areas of the value creation system, we develop concepts for a functioning EPS circular economy, the findings of which serve as a benchmark throughout Europe. We benefit from the fact that there are several players in our sector in Austria who are active in different regions. We are taking over the provinces of Carinthia and Styria. We now have a nationwide network where we return EPS waste to companies and then turn it back into a raw material. This project is also a good example of what cooperation amongst competitors can achieve, because at the same time they have become a kind of family. Fundamentally, together we have to ensure that our material is returned to our raw material suppliers in order to make a new recycled raw material out of it.
“Expanding with ideas” is the mission statement on the HIRSCH website. What ideas from the HIRSCH Servo Group absolutely must be put into practice in the near future? What ideas for Carinthia?
Kogler:Energy consumption is an important issue in our case. We are working to further reduce the ecological footprint of our products. In our group of companies, we have already invested a great deal in photovoltaics and can cover around 20 percent of our electricity requirements with it at the Glanegg site, for example. The second largest resource for us is natural gas, as the steam generation for foaming EPS granulate has so far worked with natural gas. We are now converting this to biomass by the end of 2025 in a pilot project in which we are investing an upper seven-digit amount of euros. This project will in turn serve as a role model for our other locations where we want to implement similar projects in the coming years. We use the expertise we have here not only in our Group, but with our competitors too, because we are also the leading global provider of machinery and moulding tools for the processing of particle foams, and we equip entire factories with our complete solutions. Energy efficiency, use of resources and energy generation always play an important role in this context. This approach costs a lot of money and resources but is important for the further development of the industry worldwide. We do all of this at our site in Carinthia.
We do this, because even though we are a European company, our headquarters are still in Carinthia and that is something I am proud of. This also means that you are often on the move. A lot of things work online, but the business world is also shaped by emotions and personal contacts. And we are lucky to have Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital, only 70 km away with its airport, Venice is also not far away, and there are good flight connections to Germany via Graz. So the location is ideal for getting around the globe.
About the 2025 CIRPLEX Summit
The first CIRPLEX Summit will take place in Klagenfurt in 2025. What expectations do you have of this trade fair?
Kogler: This is my hobby, so to speak, as I am honorary chairman of the Supervisory Board of Klagenfurter Messe. In this function, we thought about how we could further develop the exhibition centre in Klagenfurt. So far, there has only been one trade fair of international importance, the International Timber Fair, which takes place every two years. When we then considered where the strengths or focal points of companies in Carinthia lie, we quickly came up with plastics processing and recycling. Up to now, there are large international formats on this issue, in Amsterdam for example, but there is nothing in the traditional Alps-Adriatic region. This is why we have made recycling in the plastics industry a priority. We believe that the plastics sector is large enough for us to be able to represent a sustainable link to the Carinthian recycling industry.
To what extent is the trade fair interesting for companies in neighbouring markets and especially Germany?
Kogler: We have been trying for a year now to put together a really interesting programme with very good keynote speakers. For example, BASF and the association of European Manufacturers of Expanded Polystyrene, EUMEPS, will be here, as well as many great exhibitors. To this end, Werner Kruschitz and I have made extensive use of our networks to provide exhibitors and presentations that are also worth travelling to Carinthia for.
Carinthia and the plastics recycling economy – how far along in this area is Carinthia, in your view?
Kogler: Carinthia is known for its plastics recycling economy, and we are recognised thanks to our leading companies and committed people in this field. I always notice this in my role as an “ambassador” for Carinthia in the plastics industry when we have international guests, and they are always very impressed with what we are doing. It is important that we do not stagnate, but continue to develop. Then we are on the right track.
Mr. Kogler, thank you very much for the interview.