Viessmann sells its core business and Germany is shocked. This attitude may be convenient, but it is dishonest.
The success story of the Viessmann family has been going on for more than a hundred years. But that’s over now: As was announced on Tuesday, it is selling the heat pump and gas heating business, giving 85 percent of its sales to the American company Carrier Global.
But the champagne corks only pop at the Viessmann family. Politicians and other entrepreneurs are shocked, conjure up the end of Germany as an industrial location and are looking for someone to blame.
They make it too easy for themselves. Because pointing fingers at others is easier than touching your own nose. Both politicians and industry have made mistakes in Germany as an energy location.
This probably also played a role at Viessmann. The company still makes a large part of its sales with gas heaters, but they are to be banned. Like other German manufacturers, Viessmann can hardly keep up with the demand for heat pumps. Since this is likely to increase significantly, the sale to an American market size was obvious. Read here what the deal looks like and what it means for the German market.
Building sector causes the most emissions
It should have been clear to everyone involved for a long time: The building sector – with 40 percent the largest cause of CO2 emissions – must become more climate-friendly. Work has also been going on for years on the Building Energy Act.
FDP politicians are now accusing their partner in the traffic light government, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), of sacrificing parts of German SMEs when he bans oil and gas heating.
The entrepreneurs themselves are only too happy to fall back on this line of argument. The new president of the “Family Entrepreneurs” association, Marie-Christine Ostermann, also blamed Habeck for the sale of Viessmann’s core business. His policy means “that Viessmann’s previous core business with gas burners is virtually banned, while heat pumps will become the standard from the turn of the year, with the high subsidies now attracting international competitors,” she told the “Handelsblatt”.
A comfortable attitude, as it fails to recognize the agency of companies. Of course, reform could have come later. But that would only have postponed the problem. Because German companies would have continued to install climate-damaging heating solutions, regardless of the changed world situation. Instead of investing in climate-friendly solutions.
German companies missed the turning point
Similar to the previous federal governments with the question of the general German energy supply, the heating industry saw no need to turn away from oil and gas until the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. The change is now hitting them all the harder and unprepared.
The trend towards heat pumps has already been reflected in rising sales figures in recent years. The fact that German industry missed out on this turning point is particularly bitter, as the competition has followed the situation closely. Large Asian corporations such as Samsung and Mitsubishi are now positioning themselves to take over part of the German market.
More forward-looking action and the repeatedly invoked openness to technologies – in this case: heat pump technology – would have done the industry good and limited the current panic.
Would all of this have changed the decision of the Viessmann family? Hardly likely. With sales totaling 12 billion Euro With an annual turnover of around 4 billion euros and a whole series of assurances for employees and locations, this is a sensational deal according to industry experts – according to initial findings also for Germany as an industrial location. Many critics also have to admit that they would have been only too happy to go for it.
