Griesser Ltd and Valiant Bank Ltd are following in the footsteps of Emmi as the next companies to offer a Company Challenge for their trainees. Emmi became the first Swiss company to carry out a Company Challenge last year with a total of 75 trainees from eleven training professions. The Company Challenge is a sustainability competition for trainees within a company.
The Company Challenge at Griesser
The Griesser Company Challenge was launched in September with two joint kick-off days for trainees and vocational trainers. It was led by myclimate experts with the aim of sensitizing participants to the subject areas and encouraging them to take part. A total of 24 trainees from six training professions and all years are taking part in the internal project competition.
In November the project teams granted an initial interim look at their projects. Subject areas range from paperless production to a reduction in the use of plastic cups and the cutting of electricity and water consumption. Projects will be worked on until spring and then presented, assessed and honoured during an internal ceremony. Attractive prizes await the winning team.
"It's a pleasure to observe how enganged and motivated our apprentice are". Alex Sprenger, Project Lead myclimate Company Challenge at Griesser Ltd and Apprentice Instructor. Griesser Ltd from Aadorf/TG is a family company steeped in tradition and is one of Europe’s leading providers of solar shading systems for windows and terraces. Griesser is a long-term supporter of the “Energy and Climate Laboratory”.
Valiant – Sustainability in Banking
The Company Challenge at Valiant Bank Ltd acknowledges the importance of climate protection and sustainability in the training of banking apprentices for the first time. A total of 17 trainees from the second year are taking part in the Company Challenge at Valiant Bank Ltd They too started their competition in autumn 2018.
Getting a glimpse of the ideas for the project has proved to be a source of inspiration for more than just the project team at Valiant. Chairman of the Board Jürg Bucher and Tobias Kurz from the General Secretariat were two high-ranking Valiant representatives who were also present and who were full of enthusiasm for the commitment of their trainees. Jürg Bucher and Tobias Kurz also provided the trainees with a detailed introduction to corporate responsibility at Valiant in this context.
Valiant Bank is an independent retail and SME bank with operations based entirely in Switzerland. With its 91 offices, Valiant has a local presence in eleven cantons and employs a total of 1,000 employees.
The Company Challenge
The Company Challenge is an internal competition relating to the topics of climate protection and energy efficiency for trainees within companies. Emmi became the first Swiss company to launch a Company Challenge in 2017 at eleven production sites.
A Company Challenge begins with a site visit and a training workshop by myclimate education experts, during which fundamental principles and project ideas are developed. Specific projects emerge from the ideas to make the company more sustainable, e.g. the use of more efficient LED bulbs, the reduction of (hot) water consumption, production lines and process optimisations and the promotion of car sharing. Participating companies benefit in two ways: the loyalty shown by trainees to their company increases and, at the same time, solid, tangible improvement potential is identified and realised within the company, often providing a financial benefit. The projects are documented by participants and presented to a jury, which chooses the winning teams during the internal award ceremony.
The myclimate Company Challenge arose from the national competition and oldest myclimate education project, the “Energy and Climate Laboratory”. Since 2006, the “Energy and Climate Laboratory” has reached more than 9,000 trainees and apprentices throughout Switzerland and is viewed as one of the exemplary projects in the Swiss vocational education landscape. The annual award ceremony provides the teams from the various Company Challenges with an additional platform for their own project ideas.