Mr. Rumstadt, you joined STEAG in 1997. What did you expect from the company back then?

I knew it was a good company with prospects for promotion, shaping the future and taking on responsibility right from the start. I also found it a friendly place with very congenial people where you could make a really personal contribution. At the start, I hadn’t planned to move to STEAG, but both of those factors, the early responsibility and the people I would enjoy working with, tipped the scales. Other companies, even those offering higher salaries, couldn’t compete.

Which situation comes to mind when you think of STEAG and responsibility?

In the recent past, especially the sale of the company (editor’s note: Stadtwerkekonsortium Rhein-Ruhr acquired 51% of the shares in Evonik Steag GmbH in March 2011). Our company manifested itself as a strong unit during that period. My job was to work towards an ownership solution that strengthened our successful business model. I was impressed by the constructive way our staff and workers’ representatives approached the topic, taking on responsibility themselves and supporting the management. And that happened despite the fact that more than a few of our employees were worried about their futures during the sale process. In short, because we all took on responsibility, stood together and now have a good ownership structure, we can now look to the future with confidence.

Why does responsibility go hand in hand with entrepreneurship and affect all the staff at STEAG?

Taking on responsibility is one of my fundamental convictions about how people should deal with each other and how a business should act as part of society. Only when people accept their own responsibility is it possible for them to live and work together peacefully and successfully. In business, responsibility also means constantly striving to improve. In that connection, I can think of the marvellous ideas from our employee suggestion scheme: We regularly rank among the best in that respect, as external studies by the Deutsches Institut für Betriebswirtschaft have shown. One of our employees had the idea of de-icing coal wagons with the steam that was already available at the power plants, making the whole process much simpler and safer. But taking on responsibility also means that mistakes can be made. You have to face up to those and deal with them responsibly. That means learning from your own mistakes and giving the other people in the company the opportunity to learn from them and to improve.

What special responsibility does a company in the energy sector have?

On 08 June, STEAG will once again start trading under its original brand name.* - How is the company going to take on responsibility in the coming years?

The government’s current plans will create a huge market for generation capacity in Germany. We are power generation specialists, the fifth largest electricity producer in Germany. In that context, our responsibility is clearly defined: Contributing to security of supply while protecting the environment and ensuring profitability. We are in a good position to do that, as we fit in well with the businesses in our municipal utility consortium. At STEAG, we provide the generation platform, and the utilities handle the sales. As a result, STEAG gets a key to the door of the interesting municipal utility sector in Germany and can live up to its responsibility. Furthermore, we already know each other, trust each other and have performed projects together in the past, for example in district heating and engineering.

* Since 08 June, with the new ownership structure, Evonik Steag GmbH has re-adopted its original name of STEAG GmbH. The interview with the Chairman of the Management Board was conducted in advance of the brand launch.