?qlt=85&ts=1639752152963&dpr=off)
Carbon Footprint
Our product carbon footprint
Since 2010, we have been working successfully to cut our product carbon footprint (measured as grams CO2 per kWh). A ‘product carbon footprint’ essentially measures the entire life cycle CO2-equivalent emissions of the complete wind plant during its lifetime, including raw materials, manufacture, transport, service and operation, and end-of-life.
Vestas life cycle assessments (LCAs) are used to measure and validate our products' CO2 footprint, which are available at the link below. From 2011 to 2019, Vestas has set targets and successfully achieved significant CO2 footprint reductions, which were realised primarily through design optimisation, reducing material requirements per kWh, and through our supply-chain. For more details, please find a link to our Sustainability Reports below.
In 2020, the Vestas carbon footprint target was replaced by the Vestas Corporate Sustainability Strategy, which sets environmental commitments for: CO2 reduction in line with the Science Based Target initiative by 2030; and zero-waste wind turbines by 2040. Read more about these at the links below.
Developing a science-based target
In August 2020, the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) verified our greenhouse gas reduction target for our own operations. We were the first renewable energy manufacturer to successfully have a validated target by the SBTi. The validation covers our target to achieve carbon neutrality in our own operations (scope 1 and 2 emissions) by 2030 – without using carbon offsets. The initiative confirmed that this target is in line with the high-ambition level required to keep global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
Separately, our target for reducing emissions from our value-chain (scope 3 emissions) by 45 percent per MWh generated by 2030 has also been validated and recognised as notably ambitious.
The Science Based Target initiative is a collaboration by the Carbon Disclosure Project, the United Nations Global Compact, the World Resources Institute and the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Our electricity
In 2017, Vestas joined RE 100 – a group of global companies dedicated to increasing demand for renewable energy and committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity. Since 2013, our company has been sourcing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable sources. This was achieved partly with contracts with local suppliers of renewable electricity and partly by compensating consumption of non-renewable electricity with Vestas-owned wind farms.
In 2019, the Inka Group purchased three Vestas wind farms in Romania. These farms were contributing to our own sourcing of renewable electricity. In 2022 we again achieved our 100 percent renewables goal across our operations globally.
