Connecting talent from across the globe, strengthening the exchange of knowledge and experiences, and supporting intercultural dialogue are part of BSH’s global talent program Talentify. In the initiative “Inspire Others” which was started last year at the virtual Talentify Campus, program members formed teams and developed new ideas to foster Sustainability at BSH. Today we want to show you the full process of the “Inspire Others” project and introduce the first group and their idea.

From pitch to development – the full process of the “Inspire Others” project

In December 2021, new ideas on driving Sustainability were pitched at the virtual Talentify Campus, the yearly networking event for all Talentify members. Afterwards, teams were formed, where members had the opportunity to elaborate their ideas and get input from different perspectives and departments that might be relevant for further development. This process also helped the team members to get more insight into the topic of sustainability, broaden their personal network and encouraged them to leave their comfort zones. The groups finally presented their ideas and first concepts to representatives of diverse departments such as Corporate Sustainability, Global Digital Services as well as Innovation, and earned a lot of recognition for their ideas. Especially Christine Betz, Chief Sustainability Officer at BSH, was positively impressed with the ideas that resulted from the project.

Introducing Project Group “My Carbon Footprint”

To foster sustainability of major home appliances, one group thought about the consumers and their wants and needs. The group consists of Ander Villate (Spain), Nicole Schneider (Germany), Julie Heusse (Germany/France), Carmen Vinyas (Spain) and Diego Núñez (Germany/Mexico). They reflected how important it is to know your daily electricity consumption and how much pollution occurs every day. It seemed necessary to them to design a product that would allow consumers to monitor this. Later, by having different perspectives, the idea evolved into something simpler and more viable: The application “My Carbon Footprint” (short: MCF).

The basic idea of My Carbon Footprint was to develop an app that is connected to owned home appliances. Instead of creating a new app, they developed this idea within the Home Connect concept. MCF keeps track of the home appliances’ energy consumption and drives the consumer’s behavior toward a more sustainable future. It reduces the CO2 emissions, provides an overview of CO2 emissions based on home appliances usage, and helps to understand the impact of the consumers’ consumption habits. Furthermore, MCF comes with additional tips and tricks to live more sustainably, but these are optional and on-demand for the consumer.

The main business benefits of MCF are the increased engagement of BSH’s Home Connect app as well as gaining an in-depth knowledge of clients and their consumption. MCF also gets fast information on consumer relevance via the Minimum Viable Product approach which strives to learn fast from consumers’ feedback to further develop products. MCF boosts the visibility on social media and improves BSH’s position as a sustainable company. The group has the clear goal of turning MCF into reality by pitching it to more business units and currently, the app development is already on track. 

Learnings and experiences of the project group during “Inspire Others”

Elaborating on the idea of an app like My Carbon Footprint meant different challenges for the group members. Talentify emphasizes self-reflection and learning based on experiences with which employees recognize, develop and demonstrate their own potential – and proactively shape changes in their own work environment.

One of the major learnings of the group members throughout the ideation phase of the MCF project was the consideration of different perspectives. To introduce the idea to department experts on diverse topics, they had to make it more tangible by defining its concept and narrowing it down to its core. Implementing different points of view and opinions by building up a team, created great dynamics between the group members as well as the experts they consulted for their input. Creating this diverse team, making decisions and honing their entrepreneurial spirit made the group members learn at a high speed. Through the project, the group members also got a deeper insight into the meaning of sustainability and what the term means when realized in different projects.