It is recognized that working with wind turbines is not hazard-free. Large heavy components, dizzying heights, unpredictable weather conditions and demanding processes, to name but a few, present a challenging work environment. Vestas’ unprecedented experience in the wind industry ensures these risks are identified early and where achievable eliminated by design. Unavoidable residual risks are meticulously assed and mitigated to the lowest levels possible.

In 2017, Vestas again achieved a record low number of total recordable injuries. Significant improvement was seen in the manufacturing segments of the business with an approximate 20% decrease, further proving that Vestas ambitious goal of zero injuries is achievable. Although a number of safety initiatives were implemented in Manufacturing, analysis suggested that the Vestas Behavioural Change (VBC) program was the main contributor to this success.  Supporting and improving the safety performance of the Sales Business Units will be the main area of focus for 2018.  We aim to implement behavioural based safety in a number of identified strategic areas. A tailor-made region specific behavioural program called My Team My Responsibility (MTMR) will be utilized.

Vestas’ close collaboration and work on overall industry safety performance continues. The contractor and supply networks are often shared across the industry and improving our work partners performance on safety is considered extremely important. In 2017 Vestas delivered Safety workshops for contractors in a number of countries around the world. These workshops were very well received and attended by the main contractors of the region. The workshops clearly deliver and outline the expected Safety standards required to work for Vestas, “If you can’t work Safely you can’t work for Vestas”.

Vestas has throughout 2017 continued to support the Global Wind Organization (GWO), providing resource competency, support and market insight to enable the development of Industry Safety related training courses.  This standardization of safety training ensures a minimum standard of competence is achieved by the applicable Vestas employees or contractors prior to any work onsite taking place. Having a recognized set standard also contributes to the efficiency and associated costs by preventing duplication of training for the industry.

Near miss reporting and hazardous observations

Vestas has seen significant improvements in relation to reducing the number of injuries and we proactively act to close out any significant gaps with identified remedial action plans. To further mature we are now placing equivalent focus on the incidents with high potential for injury/fatality. Studies have identified that in industry approx. 20% of all incidents, company employees could be exposed to a life-threatening situation.

Vestas have identified a process called Life Incidents with Fatal Exposure LIFE. This process filter uses the now well-established lifesaving rules to identify any reports with potential exposure to a life-threatening situation. We simply go through each life-saving rule individually to identify if the incident was related or a contravention to that rule. Any LIFE incident identified must be prioritized and immediately acted upon to ensure any potential risk to life is eliminated.  Also ensuring that control mechanisms are reinforced or created, to ensure the LIFE incident will not reoccur.

Occupational health

Vestas has an ambition that when employees leave or retire from employment with Vestas that they should be able to reflect on their career and consider that their physical and mental wellbeing has been enhanced due to the conscientious focus Vestas place on occupational health and safety.

In 2017, a project on occupational health and safety was launched. The yearly project obtained a global overview of best practices that could provide a high standard. A Global Occupational Health Committee supports and guides the company. 

Incidence of injuries
Per one million working hours

Climate change poses one of the most serious challenges for mankind. The predicted effects could be both devastating and irreversible. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the effects of climate change will be broad-ranging, affecting water supplies, ecosystems, food availability, health and the economy, and will devastate coastal regions. It is crucial that greenhouse gas emissions are limited, that low carbon energy generation technologies take over, and that they provide power to more sectors through electrification.

Fossil fuel-based power generation causes poor air quality, contributes to global climate change and consumes significant amounts of water. As water becomes more scarce in many regions (a tendency that may be amplified by climate change), existing water supplies will not be sufficient in many countries to support the installation of new water-intensive power plants – putting economic growth at risk.

To mitigate climate change, power generation must globally become low-carbon, more sectors such as transport and heating need to use this low carbon electricity as a power source, and wherever water locally is or is expected to become scarce, power generation must become low-water. During operation, wind power plants do not consume water nor do they emit climate-changing greenhouse gases. Wind power is among the solutions to the challenges our world is facing today.

Leading the way

Even though wind energy’s lifecycle carbon footprint is extremely low when compared to other sources such as oil and gas, Vestas continuously strives to improve the environmental performance of its production and operations in order to match the performance of our products.

For turbine performance, the target for reduction in product carbon footprint is described here.

Product target for 2016-20

The target for reduction in product carbon footprint of 5 percent by 2020 from a baseline of 6.9 grams CO₂ per kWh in 2015, has been met in 2017. Carbon footprint has been reduced by 7.1 percent* on wind turbines on the 4 MW platform. This is primarily due to significantly increased energy production in all wind classes and optimised wind turbine design, leading to lower material requirement per kWh.
As such, a new target is established to reduce carbon footprint by 10 percent by 2020 from a baseline of 6.60 grams CO₂ per kWh in 2017. The carbon footprint performance has been adjusted from the 2015 baseline, which gives a slight increase in CO₂ emissions due to these accounting changes. 

In order to further reduce its carbon footprint, Vestas needs to continue improving and optimizing wind turbine performance through technology development and innovation, as well as lowering material and energy consumption in our factories and within the supply chain.

* Results are based on the ISO LCA reports published in July 2017 for the V112-3.45 MW (IEC1a), V126-3.45 MW (IEC2a) and V136-3.45 MW (IEC3a).

Product achievements for 2011-15

Results released in Q3 2015, which have been externally reviewed, confirm that the turbine’s environmental performance has improved significantly; where the carbon footprint of the V112-3.3 MW turbine has reduced by over 15% to 5.9 grams of CO₂ per kWh.

The reasons for improvements are firstly due to environmentally-led initiatives. Vestas has introduced a take-back scheme for customers to safely dispose worn-out switchgears.  This avoids potential release of a highly potent greenhouse gas, called SF₆ gas, which is reclaimed.  Secondly, the wind turbine has undergone significant design improvements which have had a great impact on performance, for example, through implementing. an increased generator rating that has increased from 3.0 MW to 3.3 MW, leading to increased energy production of the wind turbine, as well as the design optimisation giving reduced material requirements, particularly in relation to the turbine tower and foundations.

Today, Vestas contributes approximately seven per cent of the total CO₂ emission for the V112-3.3 MW turbine. Of the remaining amount, approximately 85-90 per cent is contributed by material and component suppliers, and 5-10 per cent is for transport of materials and components for construction, decommissioning and recycling.

As a company, Vestas aims to decrease our overall use of energy, increase our use of renewable energy, and use less carbon-intensive energy forms.

Focusing on Vestas’ operations, the target for energy consumption is to reach a 60 percent share of renewable energy in 2020 from 55 percent in 2015. The road to meet the target will be both improvements in energy efficiency and further transition to renewable energy.

Vestas has a commitment to source renewable electricity where available, which is primarily done through local renewable power purchase agreements. The consumption of non-renewable electricity is compensated for with Vestas-owned wind power plants. Vestas’ share of renewable electricity is today 100% and the objective is to stay at this level.

With focus on transforming the global energy market, Vestas joined in 2017 corporate group RE100, a group of global companies dedicated to increasing demand for renewable energy and committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity. RE100 is a global, collaborative initiative of influential businesses, and underlines Vestas’ commitment to a future powered by renewable energy and our joint efforts to make renewable energy an easy choice for companies. Vestas already gets 100 per cent of its electricity supply from renewable energy, and commits to stay at this level even as our operations and electricity consumption grow.

Sustainable Energy for All

More than 1 billion people across the globe still lack access to affordable and reliable electricity – with dramatic consequences for human health, education and economic well-being. These numbers show us that there is still much work to be done to ensure a sustainable global energy supply.

Vestas actively supports partnerships and collaborative efforts intended to advance the sustainability agenda. One of our most notable partnerships is with the UN as members of the Global Compact.

Looking into the coming years ahead, there is no doubt that the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be a key driver for the transition towards a sustainable and clean energy economy. The SDGs offer a universal plan to address economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

Since 2010, Vestas has been a signatory to the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI). PACI is a business-driven global anti-corruption initiative within the World Economic Forum. As a signatory to PACI, Vestas firmly believes that corruption cannot be countered without leadership and commitment from the top management.

The Vestas Code of Conduct has a zero tolerance towards any form of bribery and any form of corruption. Vestas continuously strengthens its supporting business ethics guidelines and procedures to enable Vestas to abide by anti-corruption laws and regulations applicable to the company wherever it operates in the world. The aim of Vestas’ due diligence program for its business partners is to ensure that Vestas’ business partners hold at least a similar business ethics standard to that of Vestas.

As part of Vestas’ anti-corruption initiatives and as part of the Code of Conduct, Vestas has introduced an online process for registering gifts, business entertainment and voluntary contributions and updated the guidelines on these topics. All Vestas employees are obliged to register gifts, business entertainment and voluntary contributions to ensure a high level of transparency.  

In addition to the mandatory Code of Conduct e-learning training, face to face business ethics training is provided to employees falling within a certain risk profile. This training is part of an ongoing initiative to increase awareness and understanding of Vestas business ethics standards and expectations. 

Vestas recognises its responsibility to respect human rights as set out in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and according to the framework outlined in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. This commitment, which includes our expectations for Vestas’ business partners, is described in the Vestas Human Rights Policy and implemented across the organisation globally.

The Human Rights Policy is communicated to internal and external stakeholders on Vestas’s intranet and website. In case of any complaints by employees or business partners on breaches of the Policy these can be submitted to the Vestas EthicsLine.

Vestas Human Rights Policy is also supported by our Employee Code of Conduct and Business Partner Code of Conduct.

Due diligence

To support Vestas’ emerging markets entry strategy, Vestas has developed a Social Due Diligence (SDD) methodology. The SDD is targeted at ensuring that social risks and impacts are identified, prevented and mitigated in Vestas wind power plant projects. For projects in scope, Vestas conducts an assessment of the project and the affected local communities.  

The results from the SDD include mitigation actions, which are integrated into project plans to ensure integrity in the project execution. The SDD is based on the International Finance Corporation’s Environmental and Social Performance Standards and the World Bank Group’s Environmental, Health, and Safety Guidelines for Wind Energy, ensuring that, regardless of where the customer obtains financing from, Vestas supports the project’s execution according to accepted international standards.

As a wind turbine supplier, Vestas strives to work closely with its customers to assist them in securing and maintain the social license to operate during construction and operation, according to international standards.

Current Portfolio

Other

Vestas offers customers the opportunity to acquire a customised Life Cycle Assessment, called Vestas SiteLCA™, of their own wind power plant. This determines key indicators of environmental performance and takes into consideration the wind turbine type, site specific conditions and the production supply chain.

The environmental performance of a wind power plant is site and layout specific and varies across the globe according to local site performance and manufacturing supply chain. SiteLCA™ provides customers or project developers with transparent environmental facts (such as carbon footprint, return on-energy, water-use or environmental benefits, etc) of a specific wind plant. These fact-based indicators increase business case certainty by supporting the customer’s energy strategy (energy case, power plant benefits, index ratings, etc) and supporting the project planning / permitting process (e.g. decommissioning plan, public acceptance, consultation and response).

By identifying key environmental indicators early in the project, customers are well-placed for successful and trustworthy external communications of power plant performance and to inform their energy strategy utilising fact-based information. SiteLCA™ may also quantify the power plant's key environmental benefits (such as turbine recycling or repowering options at end-of-life) and identify potential management risks of the plant, such as providing material breakdown for decommissioning plans or identifying potential key environmental impacts.

Vestas Site LCA™ is delivered by experienced experts and builds upon a long track-record of disclosing turbine environmental performance data since 1999. The service utilises advanced turbine models developed in-house by Vestas, complying with international ISO standards and third party review, which have been critically acknowledged as state-of-the-art analysis of wind power¹.

¹  Garrett, P., Rønde, K., (2012). Life cycle assessment of wind power: comprehensive results from a state-of-the-art approach. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (DOI) 10.1007/s11367-012-0445-4

By knowing how Vestas’ products and materials contribute to the environmental performance of the wind plant it is possible to make fact-based and informed decisions that will minimise overall environmental impacts. Life Cycle Assessment is used to provide the detailed knowledge regarding the material composition of the wind plant from a life cycle perspective. The figure shows a typical material breakdown of Vestas turbines.  Typically, for example, a V136-3.45 MW turbine which is composed of around 89% metals (e.g. steel, iron, copper and aluminium), 8% polymers and composite materials, and the remainder a mixture of electronics/electrical items, lubricants and fluids, etc. A brochure of material use can be downloaded here for all turbines.

Rare Earth Elements from a Life Cycle Assessment perspective

Rare earths elements are naturally-occurring elements that, once mined and processed, can be used in a variety of industrial applications such as permanent magnets  in wind turbines, hybrid car motors, components for military hardware and other high-tech applications.
In Vestas, rare earth elements are used in the magnets found in the towers of all new models of Vestas turbines, whereas rare earth elements are only used in the permanent-magnet generators for the older GridStreamer™ turbine models (i.e. the V112-3.0 MW and the 2.0 MW GridStreamer™ platform). Vestas’ current turbine range does not use rare earth elements in the generator. The rare earths elements are used to improve the performance of turbines by making the generators more efficient and more grid-compatible. This allows Vestas to reduce the size of the generator and therefore use fewer other resources (steel, composite structural materials, etc.) and create a smaller carbon footprint.
It is important to understand the difference between different types of turbine designs and how each design uses rare earths elements. There are two types of turbine drive train concepts using rare earth elements: conventional geared drive train and direct-drive (without a gearbox). The amount of rare earths elements used in direct-drive turbines is substantially higher – up to 10 times as much as a generator in a conventional drive train. Today, all Vestas turbines are based on proven technology using conventional drive trains.
The contribution of rare earth elements (such as neodymium and dysprosium) used in the turbine generator magnets, and also in the magnets used in the tower, make a negligible contribution to total resource depletion, contributing below 0.1% of total life cycle impacts¹.

End-of-life solutions

Constantly and simultaneously lowering the Cost of Energy for wind and the environmental impact of wind power is the focus of end-of-life solutions. Through research and application on how best to recover and recycle the various components and materials in a wind turbine, after its power production ceases, the end-of-life phase enhances the overall environmental performance seen from a lifecycle perspective.
The studies also supplement knowledge on how best to design the next generation of wind turbines from an environmental perspective, as well as, how to gain the most value at end-of-life from both existing turbines and new turbines being developed.

              Material breakdown of a Vestas turbine

Sources
¹Vestas, (2014). Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity Production from an onshore V112-3.3 MW Wind Plant – 6 June 2014, Version 1.0. Vestas Wind Systems A/S, Hedeager 42, Aarhus N, 8200, Denmark.

Vestas’ wind turbines, options and service offerings are the result of not only a thorough development process but also comprehensive analysis of market forecasts. The top-level Vestas process which allows us to fulfill our customer requests is known as the Vestas product market strategy. The product market strategy is the result of a complex series of analyses including market forecasts, customer trends, competition, technical predictions and grid requirements. Macro-economic factors such as national government targets for renewable energy are also studied. Based on this input, a series of strategic decisions are made regarding which products, technologies, configurations and service offerings to make available in which markets and when. By involving relevant stakeholders in the development process, requirements can be built into the design of the products at an early stage.

By knowing how Vestas’ products and materials contribute to the environmental performance, it is possible to make fact-based and informed decisions at an early stage in the product design and development phases.  Life Cycle Assessment is used to provide in-depth knowledge regarding the environmental ‘hot spots’ of the wind plant life cycle i.e. from raw material production, through to manufacturing, operation, servicing and plant decommissioning.

When designing our products, sustainability requirements are taken into consideration and ensured through Vestas' development process, the 'Vestas Way to Market.'

Vestas Way to Market

Vestas' Way to Market is Vestas’ global framework for planning, managing and executing technology and product development projects and actively involving the whole value chain in our company. As such, we strive to ensure that these projects start and end with customer requirements in focus.

The core of Vestas Way to Market is the stage-gate process consisting of seven stages and seven gates with a group of gatekeepers at each stage. The gatekeepers decide whether to let the project move on to next stage, whether to rethink some aspects or stop the project. This process ensures, amongst other things, that the specification requirements are met. The specifications are based on internal Vestas commitments such as Vestas’ chemical black list, international legislation such as the European directives, and internationally recognised codes and standards such as the ASMA, ISO and IEC.

In order to ensure regulatory compliance, it’s our ambition to share knowledge of how regulatory requirements, including transportation and HSE requirements and grid codes requirements as well as standards and certification should be complied with in the respective departments in Vestas. The purpose is to strengthen Vestas’ product regulatory compliance to ensure market access.

It is vital to identify business risks early in the development process in order to ensure that the project will not have a negative impact on Vestas’ business and strategy, reputation etc. as well as on our customers’ business. Risk management is a continuous process throughout the entire project, and a business risk overview is presented and reviewed at each gate meeting. It is the project manager’s responsibility to identify and assess key risks and present mitigation actions. The risk analysis must include input regarding health and safety aspects, product and commercial issues, process risk analyses as well as an investigation into the IPR issues.

Continuous Improvement

Part of Vestas’ business approach is to constantly develop new and better technical solutions that can improve the performance of our current operating fleet or the safety connected to operating the products.

Use of new technical solutions will very often have a positive influence on the Lost Production Factor (LPF) for a given wind farm. The LPF is the share of the potential energy from the wind not harvested by the turbines. The LPF has been substantially reduced in recent years. The average LPF has been below two percent since 2012.

When establishing a wind farm, an important part of planning should be an assessment of the proposed location and how the proposed wind farm could potentially impact the surrounding environment. In many countries, environmental impact assessment is required by law, or is part of the environmental requirements of international financial institutions which support infrastructure projects.

In most cases Vestas’ main business partner – our customers – have the primary responsibility for undertaking the environmental assessment and for developing the environmental management system for the wind plant. Vestas seeks to work closely together with our customers throughout the project life.

The environmental aspects of such an environmental assessment typically take into account direct and indirect impacts, including, for instance:

• Landscape and visual impressions
• Flora
• Fauna (e.g. birds and bats)
• Noise
• Shadows

As a global company, Vestas has many stakeholders who are interested in our sustainability performance.
We understand that our sustainability performance is an important determinant of our relationship with stakeholders. We proactively engage with stakeholders to understand their needs and concerns, and in return  we address these in our decision making process.

Transparency is a fundamental concept in our engagement strategy and this underpins our different engagement efforts. We publicly disclose key sustainability information in our annual report and on Vestas.com whilst also entering into more detailed dialogues with key stakeholders.

We actively collaborate with stakeholders to positively influence not only our own sustainability performance but also that of the wider communities we operate in. For example, Vestas took a leading role in the Global Wind Organisation, developing a standard for Basic Safety Training within the framework of the organisation. Vestas has been a driving force in establishing the Sustainability forum in the WindEurope association for consolidating best practice in the wind power industry and driving improvements. As a first outcome, two public papers were published in spring 2017 consolidating insights on “Blade waste” and “Circular economy”.

Vestas, at the Group level, has both categorised and prioritised stakeholders in an effort to rationalise and focus engagement efforts. Initially stakeholders are categorised based on their relationship with Vestas, for example, customers, NGOs and policy makers. Subsequently, each stakeholder is considered in the context of a number of criteria to determine how relevant Vestas’ sustainability performance is to them and conversely how important they are to Vestas’ sustainability performance. Engagement can range from forming active partnerships to address common sustainability issues to a more passive engagement through, for example, the publication of the annual report. The priority given to a stakeholder is used to determine the most appropriate approach to engagement.

Our ambition to build closer partnerships and support our stakeholders is reflected in Vestas' materiality analysis.

Our main stakeholder groups

Here at Vestas, we have many different stakeholder groups with whom we interact. These include customers, shareholders, employees, policy makers, suppliers and sub-suppliers, non-governmental organisations, local communities and the media.

1. Customers

We prioritise customers as our number one stakeholder group, and to ensure an open and honest dialogue we have implemented a Customer Loyalty survey. Vestas is working with customers on an on-going basis to address sustainability issues.

2. Shareholders

Transparency is at the heart of our outreach to the investment community. The stock market experts look at Social, Economic, Environmental and Health & Safety initiatives to rate listed industrial companies.

3. Employees

Employees are Vestas’ most important asset and we have a range of offerings aimed at them to ensure continuous learning and development as well as competitive benefits.
We reach out to employees through different channels to ensure that they are engaged and committed to Sustainability issues. One channel is Vestas’ Safety Walks. A Safety Walk is an opportunity for managers in production, service or administration to discuss safe behavior and ways of improving safety with employees in their actual job function. We also use our Employee Survey to measure the employees’ perception of their working environment. The survey is followed up by the drafting of action plans in all departments in order to act on the feedback we receive.

To ensure that employees can report malpractice or ask questions they may need an answer to if faced with ethical dilemmas at work; a Whistle-blower system, named EthicsLine is available. Except where specifically prohibited by local law anyone filing a report may remain anonymous.

4. Policy makers

At Vestas, we work closely with political stakeholders to drive the market for wind energy. As the energy industry is a regulated industry, we are naturally in dialogue with governments, political leaders, civil servants, interest groups and non-governmental organizations all over the world. We offer advice and information about the benefits and potential of wind power and continuously engage with policy makers in the regions and countries where we operate advocating reforms and providing best practice experience.

5. Local communities

The acceptance and trust from local communities where the wind farms are erected are important elements to obtain and maintain the social license to operate. Obtaining and maintaining the social license requires, for example, timely and effective communication, meaningful dialogue, sensitivity to local cultural norms, creating realistic expectations, and developing fair grievance mechanisms.

Vestas works together with our customers to gain and maintain the social license. We do this as a part of our Social Due Diligence. Activities related to obtaining and maintaining the social license can differ depending on the local context and the project set-up. In order to identify and prioritise activities, Vestas primarily focuses on education, training and job possibilities (linked to SDGs 4 and 8) in the local area.
.

Understanding our stakeholders’ opinions and priorities enables us to make better decisions and ensure that we are both a successful company and a responsible member of the community. We have therefore engaged with internal and external stakeholders to define what matters most to them and in doing so have identified what the material sustainability issues are for Vestas.

A materiality analysis is mapping topics and indicators that reflect the organization’s significant economic, environmental, and social impacts. By identifying material issues we can focus our sustainability-related programs on the areas that are most important to Vestas and our stakeholders. The materiality analysis also influences how we report on sustainability issues. For example, we comment on the most material issues in the annual report and provide additional information and updates on Vestas.com.

The identification of material issues is performed through an internal stakeholder consultation involving many parts of the organization. To prioritise issues, we use internal knowledge of stakeholder expectations, Vestas surveys, external stakeholder sustainability reports, consultant input and global sustainability studies.

The materiality analysis is enhanced by consulting directly with external stakeholders such as customers and investors. Doing so gives us additional insight into their priorities and provides a useful platform for meaningful dialogue.

In 2016, the Vestas materiality analysis has identified a range of sustainability issues. Amongst these, Business Performance, Innovation, Health & Safety, Product Environmental Performance and Local Community Development are understood to be some of the most important sustainability issues.

At Vestas, all employees must work according to Vestas Management System, which sets the standards for the environment and occupational health and safety.

Vestas has established, documented and implemented Vestas Management System (VMS) as an integrated management system. The VMS is maintained and continually improved to support the business strategy, the quality, environment and health & safety policy, Code of Conduct and CSR policies by setting objectives, analysing audit results, performance data, corrective actions, risks and opportunities and performing management review.

The Vestas Management System serves to put all external and internal Vestas sustainability requirements systematically, efficient and effectively into practice. It is Vestas’ intent to make sustainability an integral component of all business processes.

In order to ensure continual improvements for sustainability performance in each area, our daily working practices are governed processes and supported by various tools – including databases and IT systems.

For example, in order to enhance communication we insist on regular internal reporting on all significant environmental aspects and reporting of health, safety and environmental incidents through our Incident Management System. This helps us identify and investigate the most relevant issues to be addressed. The solutions implemented to these issues help to continuously improve the overall Vestas sustainability performance throughout the organisation.

Certificates

Vestas is fully covered by an umbrella certificate for the management system standards OHSAS 18001:2008, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 9001:2015.

To take sustainability at Vestas to the next level, a Sustainability Committee with cross-functional participation has been established. The role of the Sustainability Committee is to oversee, prioritise, and coordinate cross-functional sustainability initiatives in Vestas and ensure sustained conformity according to UN Global Compact. The committee reports to the Executive Management and has met five times in 2017, with a planned meeting frequency of four times a year going forward.

Responsibility for sustainability performance lies in the line organisation. To support the line organisation the following departments are responsible for global policies, procedures, and overall guidance related to sustainability: Health, Safety and the Environmental is managed by the Global Quality, Safety & Environment (QSE) department, CSR and the Business Ethics function are managed by the Legal & Compliance department.

Board committees

Vestas board committees oversee Vestas’ focus on sustainability. In 2017, the Board of Directors held seven Audit Committee meetings, four Nomination & Compensation Committee meetings, and four Technology & Manufacturing Committee meetings.

The Audit Committee evaluates the adequacy and effectiveness of Vestas' ethics and anti-corruption programme pursuant to Vestas' Code of Conduct and the World Economic Forum Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI). The cases filed in Vestas whistle blower system, Vestas Ethics Line, are reported here.

The Nomination & Compensation Committee supports the Board of Directors in overall staff-related topics, including diversity. The Technology & Manufacturing Committee evaluates sustainability performance.

Customers and employees expect a unified approach to safety regardless of region or country. Vestas agrees. That’s why we have developed a wide variety of global processes, such as:

Incident management

A sustained effort to increase the flow of knowledge in regards to corrective and preventive actions against safety is a priority. Global knowledge sharing on a monthly basis enables proactive learning to establish best practices for reducing the number of injuries.

Contractor safety

As Vestas’ own safety performance has improved strongly over the years, the performance of contractors has become increasingly important to protect both Vestas’ and its contractors’ employees from potential harm as well as to live up to customer expectations of safe operations. Measures implemented so far to improve the performance of contractors include pre-qualifications, standardisation of safety requirements and intensified tracking of safety performance.

Safety Induction programmes

A safety induction programme for managers and employees is part of the induction programme for new employees. We do this as employees must know what to expect - and what is expected of them - as soon as they arrive.

Electrical safety

Global standards on “Electrical Safety” and “Control of Hazardous Energy” have been developed in order to eradicate electrical injuries. A range of Master Instructors cascade their knowledge into the business.

Risk and opportunities

As part of Vestas’ strive for continuous improvements, its processes of assessing risks and opportunities accommodate a growing demand for alignment across areas of sustainability. The processes will ensure that all sustainability-related risks and opportunities are systematically and effectively identified, quantified, mitigated and monitored in an aligned way throughout the organisation.

Being in control of the chemicals and hazardous substances used in development, manufacturing and service of the turbines is part of our management system and essential for a sustainable company.
Only when actively working on finding safer and more environmentally friendly products does Vestas ensure a healthy workplace for our employees and minimum impact to the environment.

Chemical management at Vestas includes global procedures for approval of new chemicals, local instructions for handling, transporting and storing chemicals and a global chemical database for sharing knowledge from suppliers.

Vestas has, in cooperation with a global provider of chemical, regulatory and compliance information services, implemented a global chemical management system. This includes an online system where all employees can enter and obtain essential information about the chemicals and hazardous substances used in Vestas. Some of the essential information which is available to the employees in the database includes Safety datasheets (SDS’s) and information about dangerous goods facilitating safe handling, usage, transport and disposal.

In order to adapt to continuously changing chemical legislation globally like GHS/CLP and REACH, Vestas has updated our criteria. Two lists apply; a Material and Chemical Blacklist which identifies substances that are prohibited by law and a Material Restricted list which aims to phase out substances in our product and manufacturing and service processes. The restricted list is based on the decision by Vestas management to limit the use of the most hazardous substances.

Vestas requires our suppliers to fulfill the requirements on the Chemical and Material Blacklist for all products delivered to Vestas. Vestas cannot buy products containing substances that are prohibited. If the product contains chemicals or materials restricted according to the Vestas Material Restricted list, an HSE evaluation must be performed by the supplier to ensure correct use of the chemicals and materials. Furthermore it is expected that the supplier creates an action plan for phasing out these restricted substances and finding alternatives. In parallel, Vestas needs to assess if a time bound dispensation can be signed off and/or if the product can be substituted.

Employees are crucial to staying competitive and providing customers with the best service. The company’s People Pipeline – employee lifecycle – ensures that the right people are in the right functions throughout the organisation. It enables Vestas to attract, employ, reward, develop and retain the best.

Vestas attempts to foster an inclusive and diverse environment to attract employees of different nationalities. We are also dedicated to continuous improvement of competences. We do that through a variety of internal learning possibilities as well as career development. Vestas has among other things developed three leadership tracks and attractive benefits.

Being a global business entails employing people of different nationalities and cultures. The business must be ‘in the region, for the region.'

Recruiting

Vestas is active in over 70 countries and is constantly seeking opportunities to expand into new markets. We always seek to hire the best-suited candidates for vacant positions, based on background and merit. We do thorough assessments of both external and internal candidates, and value opportunities to promote qualified internal talents.

Training

In 2017, a total of 1,795,276 hours of training was registered resulting in an average of 79.8 hours of training per FTE. 

Development

The Continuous Performance and Development process (CPD) and People Review are two of our key tools within the area of employee development.

The People Review aims to create insight into the performance and potential of our employees, and to have a structured and proactive approach to performance management, competency development, talent identification and management, and succession planning. All employees at our corporate leadership levels are mandatorily in review, but many business units choose to review all employees.

Continuous Performance & Development is about performance management, employee development and especially the continuous, real-time feedback culture supporting our leaders and employees in their everyday work life. CPD is about ensuring that all employees receive feedback on their performance and behaviour for the year, and that performance objectives are set for the coming 12 months. Development objectives focuses on ensuring the right competencies with the right people. CPD check-ins are recommended as minimum once per month aims at following-up on performance and adjusting where necessary, building manager and employee relationship, focusing on work/life balance and ensuring real-time feedback both from stakeholders and from the immediate manager.

In 2016, 95 percent of Vestas’ employees responded to the Employee Survey and 85 percent of Vestas' employees conducted a Performance Feedback/Objective setting dialogue with their manager.

Compensation & Reward

Vestas is a global company and, inevitably, this means pay practices and market rates may differ by region. However, the company aims to approach each location in the same manner and with the same guidelines. Thus Vestas seeks to ensure that compensation and reward levels remain fair when comparing, for instance, locations and gender, and remain competitive when comparing to industry standards.

Exit

All employees leaving Vestas, regardless of the reason for their departure, are offered an interview as part of the exit process. This way, the company learns more about why the employee has chosen to leave Vestas, and can devise new methods for making the company more likely to attract and retain talent in the future.

When having to lay-off employees in large numbers, Vestas always ensures negotiations are conducted as quickly as possible and result in decent severance packages for all those affected. In such incidences, Vestas offers laid-off employees support for further education and outplacements.

Recognitions

Member company of the FTSE4Good index

Member company of the STOXX Global ESG Leaders

Member company of the MSCI Indices (ESG, SRI, Environmental, Climate) 

Vestas Wind Systems has been reconfirmed as a constituent of the Ethibel Sustainability Index (ESI) Excellence Europe and the Ethibel Sustainability Index (ESI) Excellence Global since 21/09/2018.

Carbon Disclosure Project

Vestas signed up to the United Nations Global Compact in 2009. We report on our implementation of the ten Global Compact Principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.

Based on the guidance and requirements of the Global Reporting Initiative, Vestas’ reporting contains Standard Disclosures from the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines in the combined reporting in the Annual Report and online.

The index lists references in the Annual Report as well as online information. In addition to the GRI reporting elements, this index also contains details of topics relevant to the Global Compact Principles. The ten principles have been linked to the GRI indicators.

Vestas is implementing the UN Global Compact Advanced Programme. See Vestas’ status on realizing the UN Global Compact Advanced.