Expanded partnership to accelerate lifetime carbon neutral commitment

The Velux Group, man­u­fac­tur­er of roof win­dows, and Schnei­der Elec­tric, leader in the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of ener­gy man­age­ment and automa­tion, now pub­lished their new extend­ed part­ner­ship agree­ment. This is designed to enable Velux Group to achieve its cor­po­rate goal of CO2 neu­tral­i­ty by 2030. To address the increas­ing need to proac­tive­ly address the cli­mate cri­sis, the col­lab­o­ra­tion will con­tin­ue to accel­er­ate plans for life­time car­bon neu­tral­i­ty — the Life­time Car­bon Neu­tral commitment.

To achieve the RE100 goal, Schnei­der Elec­tric announced ear­li­er this year that it would help Velux source the equiv­a­lent of 100 per­cent renew­able elec­tric­i­ty by 2023. Build­ing on this, the tech group will now devel­op a glob­al pro­gram of zero CO2 action plans for each of the Velux Group’s sites as part of the new agree­ment. Among oth­er things, this will suc­cess­ful­ly reduce ener­gy con­sump­tion and increase renew­able ener­gy capacity.

Velux aims for 100 percent climate neutrality by 2030

The expand­ed focus of the part­ner­ship sup­ports Velux Group’s goal of achiev­ing full cli­mate neu­tral­i­ty (Scope 1 and 2) by 2030 and life­time cli­mate neu­tral­i­ty by the Group’s 100th anniver­sary in 2041 — decades ahead of oth­er com­pa­nies. This means that the Group has com­mit­ted to com­mit­ting its his­tor­i­cal car­bon foot­print as well as reduc­ing its future car­bon emis­sions in line with the Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment. In addi­tion, a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on for­est con­ser­va­tion projects around the world is being imple­ment­ed. Velux Group is also work­ing to halve CO2 emis­sions across its val­ue chain (Scope 3) by 2030.

Three-year global partnership

The three-year part­ner­ship includes all Velux fac­to­ry sites around the globe: Schnei­der Elec­tric — the world’s most sus­tain­able com­pa­ny in 2021, accord­ing to Cor­po­rate Knights — will devel­op a glob­al decar­boniza­tion pro­gram includ­ing the following:

 — Ener­gy assess­ment of all Velux Group fac­to­ry sites result­ing in the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of zero emis­sions action plans.
 — Sup­port Velux Group’s Ener­gy Excel­lence pro­gram in accor­dance with ISO50001 and improve ener­gy effi­cien­cy and devel­op on-site renew­able ener­gy capac­i­ty to phase out fos­sil fuels
 — Imple­ment a glob­al mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem through Schnei­der Elec­tric’s EcoStrux­u­re Resource Advi­sor to mea­sure and ana­lyze ener­gy consumption.

Velux will test zero-CO2 action plans at two of the com­pa­ny’s most ener­gy-inten­sive plants, which account for about 25 per­cent of Velux’s total man­u­fac­tur­ing ener­gy use: JTJ Son­neborn Indus­trie GmbH in Ger­many and NM Pol­s­ka Sp. Z o.o. in Poland. Sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments are being made at these sites to switch to renew­able heat­ing sources. This includes the instal­la­tion of heat pumps that run on green elec­tric­i­ty and use wood waste from cer­ti­fied (FSC/PEFC) forests pro­duced on site. Velux will also invest in on-site pho­to­volta­ic sys­tems and fur­ther improve the ener­gy effi­cien­cy of its sites by opti­miz­ing sup­ply sys­tems, pro­duc­tion process­es and ener­gy management.

“We are hon­ored to have been select­ed by the Velux Group as a cli­mate neu­tral­i­ty part­ner. Accel­er­at­ed cli­mate action is essen­tial to avoid the worst effects of glob­al warm­ing. We know that it is pos­si­ble today to achieve a warm­ing sce­nario as low as 1.5°C through proven decar­boniza­tion solu­tions such as resource effi­cien­cy, renew­able ener­gy pro­cure­ment, and high-qual­i­ty car­bon cred­its and off­sets. We com­mend Velux Group for rec­og­niz­ing the urgency of cli­mate change, accel­er­at­ing its cli­mate goals, and set­ting the gears in motion to achieve net zero well before 2050.”

- Chris­tel Hey­de­mann, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent Europe Oper­a­tions, Schnei­der Electric