Circular Economy 360 Series: Gabriela Sonnleitner, magdas Hotel

Throughout the live Circular Economy 360 Series we have returned to the notion that environmental and social justice go hand-in-hand. In the second of these interviews we’re delighted to be joined by Gabriela Sonnleitner from magdas Hotel. During our chat with Gabriela, we talk about finding the positives in both all people and all materials, ensuring everything around us can achieve its maximum value.

Having had a successful career in marketing and communications Gabriela joined magdas Social Business Group (a subsidiary company of Caritas Vienna), of which magdas Hotel is a part of, as managing director in 2015. Being managing director at magdas Social Business is the perfect combination of Gabriela’s profit and non-profit experience.

Magdas Hotel started as an employment initiative for refugees. Having observed that many employers focused on skills gaps, namely that of language. They looked at what individuals had rather than what they lacked. In hospitality the ability to speak many different languages was a huge benefit that could be harnessed.

They took the same approach in considering materials. While a building was available but could be repurposed it’s still needed to be renovated to meet the needs of the new business. As with many socially led organisations, budgets were tight but imagination and positive attitude run high. The decision to re-use and up cycle as much as possible was taken. However, as with all enterprise activity it was important to understand and meet customer needs and expectations – reduce and up cycling could not mean shoddy, mismatched or second-best.

We hear in this interview how magdas Hotel went on to win national design awards achieving recognition for their environmental and circular economy approach. We consider how this now aligns with customer profiles, future business development and environmental impacts across their wider business moving forwards.

If you’re keen to hear another speaker from closer to home touching on issues around environmental and social justice you may also wish to view this extract from our live session on business benefits of the circular economy with Celia Hodson from Hey Girls. For those of you keen to know more about customer profiling, the recently launched SIS Retail for Change – Social Sessions would also be worth a look.