Building a Sustainable Future - One Challenge at a Time

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At HARMAN, we believe it’s our shared responsibility to build products and technologies that not only improve people’s lives, but also contribute to a more sustainable future. With this in mind, we wanted to learn more from our employees about how they blend sustainability in their day-to-day lives. Robert, product manager with HARMAN for over 9 years, shared his journey to sustainability – from both a personal and professional perspective. 
 

Sustainability starts from within  

For Robert, sustainability is all about the way we treat our planet and balancing the use of resources that we have available to combat climate change. And for him, that all starts from within.  
 
“If we want to see change, it all starts with ourselves, as we all share a responsibility”, shared Robert. On a personal note, he believes we should strive to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint in both our private and professional lives – and the way to get there proved to uncover new horizons: “When I stopped eating meat six years ago, I had to learn new tasteful plant-based recipes – in a similar way, we as a company can find great ways to make our products more sustainable, without any compromises”. 
 

Getting engaged in sustainable actions at HARMAN

In recent years, sustainability has grown in importance for the company’s entire business ecosystem. To contribute to HARMAN’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2040, Robert participated in a 6-month study program in sustainability management, which allowed him to get better reference points for these challenging discussions. 
 
Robert currently leads and coordinates sustainability initiatives for new product development within the Martin by HARMAN brand. Together with a strong team of product managers and representatives from engineering functions, they are working relentlessly to develop solutions that reduce the carbon footprint impact.  
 
“It has been fantastic to experience how the discussions have matured and there is an overall strong buy-in from everyone to do things in a better way, despite not always being easy”, Robert shared. “We have already achieved some very measurable and visible wins on the packaging side, and we have significantly reduced the amount of oil-based packaging like polystyrene foam, now using cardboard materials for the outer packaging and the inner buffer.” 
 
 

One challenge at a time 

To best understand his customers’ pain points and develop better products, Robert must travel to several locations globally. To keep the business trips sustainable, HARMAN offers a footprint off-set program encouraging employees to use as a sustainable travel option.​

While these efforts are in line with customer expectations for sustainable partners and suppliers, Robert values the sustainable shifts he’s seeing inside HARMAN. “The biggest impact so far is the change of engagement by employees all over the organization – sharing the same goal of reducing carbon footprint and be more cautious on our spend of resources.”