Vestas sets standards for ethics, environment

WINDSOR – If Northern Colorado succeeds in landing Danish company Vestas Wind Systems’ first North American manufacturing venture, it also would welcome one of the world’s most revered corporate citizens.

That is the consensus of conservation and business-ethics groups that have documented the Vestas global record of corporate responsibility, with high rankings on lists that rate eco-friendliness and corporate goodwill.

That’s also good news for Northern Colorado, considering that Denmark-based Vestas’ plant, if built near Windsor, would import thousands of tons of raw materials for the production of huge wind-turbine blades, and would discharge many hundreds of tons annually in the form of landfill waste and recyclables.

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The company’s own environmental reports are painstaking catalogs of materials used and cast off in the process of making some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated wind-power generating systems.

A Denver economic development official who has dealt with Vestas executives since they arrived on the Front Range to begin a site-selection process last year said the company’s environmental record should provide reassurance to anyone concerned about heavy industrial manufacturing in the region.

“Obviously, they have to operate at a different standard, a much higher one, at their European locations than any they would have to meet here,´ said Tom Clark, vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. “But it’s clear that even there – in Denmark and Germany and other European Union countries – they go way beyond that.”

Vestas pops up on list after list of environmentally and socially responsible businesses. It makes perennial appearances on The Global 100, a prominent list of the world’s most environmentally and socially conscious publicly traded companies compiled by the consulting group Innovest Strategic Value advisors and published in Business Week.

The ratings note Vestas’ commitment to environmental goals that include:

n Deriving more than half the energy that Vestas consumes in its manufacturing operations from renewable energy sources, including onsite wind turbines.

n Seeking alternatives to poisonous lead for soldering electronic parts and as ballast for turbine blades.

n Continuous increase in the volume of manufacturing waste that is either recycled or reused.

‘The New Belgium of Denmark’

Beyond its environmental policies, Vestas has also been recognized as emblematic for fair labor practices and work-force policies. Since the 1950s, Vestas has been among the first corporations to sign United Nations human rights measures and International Labor Organization pacts that push for protection of labor rights. Those agreements call for protection of collective bargaining rights, equal pay for men and women, guarantees of freedom of association and non-discrimination in employment.

Because of its environmental and social record, Vestas’ shares are included in portfolios of dozens among a growing number of specialty mutual funds that feature only companies that are beyond reproach for corporate responsibility.

A Fort Collins conservation activist, familiar with Vestas’ reputation among Europeans, compared the company to a Northern Colorado standard-bearer for corporate ethics and environmental soundness.

“Vestas is like the New Belgium of Denmark,´ said Mark Easter, referring to the Fort Collins brewing company that has become an environmental and social model for other businesses.

Easter, who has traveled widely in Europe and built relationships with conservation groups there, said Vestas is particularly revered in the Netherlands, where the Dutch government’s electric utility is one of Vestas’ biggest customers.

“The company is almost hyper-popular there,” Easter said. “And the best part of it is that they make a product that people believe in. They’re not making widgets, or Christmas ornaments.”

Metro Denver’s Clark and other economic development officials who have dealt with senior Vestas executives during their site selection process say that the company’s ethical bent shows up in the way they have conducted negotiations.

“These guys are the real deal,” Clark said. “There’s an earnestness in their demeanor, and an honesty with which they deal with us, that you just don’t see in other companies.”

Clark also said Vestas, in its meetings with regulatory officials at Colorado’s Department of Health and Environment, had demonstrated they could hit any standard the state requires.

“Throughout this whole process, there isn’t a milestone that Vestas hasn’t hit,” Clark said. “They’ve shown they can do whatever is required, and more.”

State officials, citing confidentiality agreements with Vestas, declined to comment.