‘ESG is becoming an integral part of FM in Austria too’

Turning his passion into a career – Thomas Winter has found this in facility management. The trained electrical engineer can not only contribute his enthusiasm for technology here, but also project and process management – both disciplines that the 41-year-old acquired through a bachelor's and master's degree – as well as IT and innovation topics are part of his everyday work. This is all the more true as CEO of Apleona Austria, where the aim is to streamline processes to future-proof the Austrian business.

Why would you recommend a career in FM to young people?
People who are flexible and eager to learn, enjoy solving problems and want to continuously develop themselves are in the right place in FM. As an FM service provider, you get to look behind the scenes in a variety of industries and locations that you would otherwise never get to know: airports, data centres, banks, museums, hospitals, etc. The career opportunities are excellent.
 

Why is Apleona Austria a good place to work?This newly founded company has brought together many knowledgeable people who are committed to becoming the leading technical FM service provider in Austria. We offer our employees a secure job and invest in long-term employee retention. We are constantly working to improve the quality of our services and are open to criticism and feedback. We are interested in acquiring and expanding new business areas such as ESG. Safety in the workplace is a high priority for us. We want to open up career paths for young people in particular and offer continuous knowledge and skills development regardless of hierarchical position.

What are the next steps for you in terms of the company's development?
We want to expand the enlarged service portfolio gained through the merger to current and new customers. To do this, we first need to roll out uniform, efficient and digitalised processes across all areas. In addition, we want to further expand our expertise in ESG and support customers with digital solutions. We also want to pursue the concept of PPP projects (construction and operation).
 

How do you see Apleona positioned in the current market environment?In our current setup and with our tools, we are the only FM provider in Austria that can set up uniform quality and performance documentation across the board, from Neusiedler See to Lake Constance, in a short period of time and deliver it on a long-term basis. We have a comparatively high level of in-house expertise in technical FM services. Alongside Caverion, we are the only company in Austria with experience in PPP projects. We are the largest service provider for technical FM and one of the few with an international presence.

In which market segments would you like to grow and why?
We want to continue growing throughout Austria. Most of our competitors are retreating to the regions of Upper Austria, Styria and, of course, Vienna/Lower Austria. However, there are customers who want a single provider for all locations in all federal states. We have long-standing expertise here with customers such as Bank Austria and can therefore also achieve synergy effects. A very interesting customer segment that we want to focus on is industry. Here, we want to become a reliable partner for ESG issues and, in addition to our TFM solutions, further expand our expertise in the operation of production facilities. We also want to further expand the large-scale project business of our LCS (Life Cycle Solutions) division in Vienna/Lower Austria/Burgenland and Upper Austria. We have already built six educational campuses in Vienna and a university of applied sciences in St. Pölten with our ARGE partners (PPP models).

Do you agree that FM service providers are increasingly becoming partners in the implementation of ESG strategies?Since I implemented energy-saving projects in my first job, this topic has always been with me. At that time, it was mostly a separate discipline and was handled by dedicated teams and experts who wanted to attract customers with ‘free’ analyses. Ultimately, promising projects failed due to the calculated ROIs and often also due to the ‘convenience’ of low energy prices and a lack of environmental awareness. This is now finally over. Customers are pushing for solutions. The challenges now are mostly the impatience of companies and the scarcity of human and material resources. I am also convinced that it can no longer be an isolated discipline, but must be an integral part of all FM services. The trick here is to raise the level of maturity of all employees on the subject of ESG. In short, ESG is becoming an integral part of FM.

Are there any concrete examples of this at Apleona Austria?
Energy audits and energy efficiency measures as well as waste management have been an integral part of our service portfolio for many years. Under the heading ‘ESG’, we have been successfully collecting and processing data for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions since 2020. AI-supported building control (Recogizer) has been in implementation at several locations since 2022.