Harmonizing People, Technology, and Space
Interview with Prosper Dupuis, Managing Director of Gertec GmbH - Planning Company
As a powerful planning and engineering company serving both the private sector and the public sector, Gertec aims to consistently participate in the design of comprehensive transformation concepts for a sustainable future. Speaking with Wirtschaftsforum, managing director Prosper Dupuis discussed the diversity of his commitment and the new paths his company wants to take.
Wirtschaftsforum: Mr. Dupuis, for almost 45 years now, Gertec - today in the form of two sister companies - has been active as a planning and engineering company in the market. What fundamental attitude characterizes your commitment?
Prosper Dupuis: In response to this question, we have given it a lot of thought and together with all our employees, we have come up with the following formula: Change is natural for us and opens up the opportunity to make the environment more livable - for this purpose, we comprehensively, sustainably, and connectively bring together people, technology, and space. Gertec consistently infuses this complexity with life in our daily business: In technical building equipment, we fundamentally rely on a strong interdisciplinary approach, within which we engage in all mechanical and electrical trades. In our engineering company, we also provide broad and comprehensive advice on sustainable and circular building.
Wirtschaftsforum: Another guiding principle at Gertec is: "Being an engineer means thinking new things!" What are you currently rethinking?
Prosper Dupuis: Currently, the focus of our clients and our company is clearly on the development and implementation of sustainable transformation concepts: How can the heat transition be successful? How can we meaningfully support our partners in the energy transition and on the path to climate neutrality? And what does sustainable infrastructure with corresponding heat networks look like? Thanks to our strong position as a planning and engineering firm, we can accompany our clients on this path from very early conceptual stages to the elaboration of intricate details. The combined knowledge of our architects, engineers, and construction planners is probably our most important basis for success.
Wirtschaftsforum: What is the source of this strong motivation at Gertec?
Prosper Dupuis: Being involved in shaping a sustainable future is indeed strongly intrinsically driven for us - a strong focus was already placed on it at the company's founding in 1981. Even today, we want to consistently continue to drive this ambition forward. Of course, there is now a whole different awareness for the topic of sustainability among private builders, hospital operators, and the public sector, which is probably due to the expectations of younger generations. Heat pumps, connectivity options for electric mobility, and photovoltaic systems are now often integrated into corresponding building structures to be well-prepared for the future - applications in which we can fully leverage our expertise. We are currently advising many communities on municipal heat planning as well.
Wirtschaftsforum: What are the central challenges on this path?
Prosper Dupuis: In public tenders, we can continue to convincingly rely on our expertise and competencies, but unfortunately, the documentation process is very complex - the same applies to the diverse landscape of standards, where we, like surely many other planning companies, would wish for a sustainable simplification.