In recognition of Earth Day, we’ve been speaking to entrepreneurs who have used their business school education to make a difference. These individuals have created start-ups that solve a business problem in a sustainable way.

Sebastian Leicht graduated from Frankfurt School of Finance and Management in 2014 with an Executive MBA. Since then, along with his co-founder Marco Knobloch, he has founded Easy2Cool Gmbh, a business that creates eco-friendly cooler packaging for temperature sensitive goods. Using ecological packaging material, Paperfloc, the company’s mission is “the protection of temperature sensitive goods anytime, anywhere.”

Can you tell us a little bit about your business and what it does?

Easy2Cool Gmbh develops inhouse production and sales of ecological cooling boxes, cool packs and paper-based insulated packaging and individual, passive solutions for temperature-sensitive logistics.

Since its foundation in 2014 in Munich, the easy2cool GmbH has been turning its vision into its mission: “The protection of temperature-sensitive goods anytime, anywhere.” Our aim was to create a sustainable alternative for insulating packaging which is unsurpassed in terms of performance and transport safety.

Insulation systems for cooling shipment are usually made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) and plastics. Due to high energy demand within production of EPS and its extremely problematic disposal, an immense negative impact for our climate, water and oil evolves!

The solution: a new sustainable insulation material, which we have developed in a joint research project with technical university Dresden. The basic material is simple and efficient at the same time – recycled paper! Since then, we have consistently expanded to become a leading supplier of integrated cooling concepts for transport and logistics in German-speaking Europe. From a start-up producing cooling packs in a car garage, to now more than 100 employees.

What inspired you to start this business and tackle this issue?

The basic idea that my co-founder Marco and I had initially had no sustainable reason. We recognised the problem of cooling food at large events such as festivals or in the camping sector and tried to find a solution. We also wanted to find out what it was like to set up a company and what was needed to start it. For the first two years it was more of a leisure activity for us until we realised the potential outside of our focus at the time.

How has your business school experience helped you become an entrepreneur?

My career up to my EMBA was characterised by employment relationships. Running my own company or even founding one myself was not an option for me. Through the content, but above all through my fellow students, I was able to better understand what is necessary for this. As a result, I was able to overcome my excessive respect. Without that, I probably wouldn’t have founded a company.

What challenges have you encountered while integrating sustainability into your business operations, and how have you overcome them?

A few years ago, we would have preferred not to develop our own products and to act as a distributor. Unfortunately, we did not find the quality of products that met our sustainability requirements. We also often received rejections from producers when we asked to develop such products together.

“Don’t be afraid and just get started. Problems are usually best solved when they are very concrete. Accept help if it is offered to you honestly.”

The entire packaging industry was not geared towards sustainability at the time and massively underestimated the importance of the topic. It was therefore much more difficult for us to enter the market, as our products first had to be developed, which took a lot of time. From today’s perspective, however, this was a positive outcome, as it allowed us to build up our own development.

As a sustainable-focused entrepreneur, how do you navigate the balance between profitability and purpose?

I am sure that sustainable products will only be successful on the market if they are economically interesting and competitively priced.

It is therefore essential to achieve good margins with the products on offer in order to make them increasingly competitive in development. In my opinion, hoping for a fundamental acceptance to pay more money for products just because they are sustainable is wrong.

Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for the future of your sustainable business?

The market for shipping fresh and frozen products is growing strongly and Europe, especially Germany, is lagging behind. I therefore expect above-average growth rates here. We want to be able to serve this market. However, internationalisation is also a priority. We see sales opportunities for our products both in Europe and America. We are therefore trying to protect our products worldwide through patents.

What advice would you give to other sustainable business founders?

Don’t be afraid and just get started. Problems are usually best solved when they are very concrete. Accept help if it is offered to you honestly. After a certain amount of time, think about whether your basic thoughts as to why you founded the company have actually materialised and whether you have been honest with yourself about your assumptions.

Interested in this series? You might also like this…