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CASE - VESTAS WIND SYSTEMS
CREATING THE WORLD’S FIRST GLOBAL RENEWABLE ENERGY CONSUMER LABEL
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Vestas set out on a challenging journey when deciding to develop WindMadeTM and gain traction among citizens and global consumer brands like Google, LEGO, Microsoft and Nike. By using this visionary and novel approach to business development, Vestas hopes to break down barriers for wind energy investments and demonstrate how a true industry leader takes responsibility for building their core market.
Develop the first ever global consumer label for a single renewable energy source. Create a coalition of the world’s most credible NGOs like WWF and international strategic policy initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact together with globally respected businesses, e.g. Bloomberg, the LEGO Group and PwC. Build a robust label standard which satisfies conflicting needs of consumers, NGOs and global consumer brands. Establish an independent organisation to host the label, and then hand it over to the Global Wind Energy Council, the global forum for the wind energy sector representing 99% of the globally installed wind power turbines. Announce the initiative in the zenith of global attention at the World Economic Forum in Davos – the yearly gathering of the world’s most influential business executives – to an extensive crowd of global press, environmental organisations and executives from consumer brands such as Coca-Cola, Estée Lauder and General Electric. Receive significant praise for the initiative from the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, in his official World Economic Forum introduction speech. And gain publicity through more than 500 articles in leading global media, including front page stories in the International Herald Tribune and USA Today, TV interviews on CNN and Reuters as well as both major Danish TV networks, and reach out to millions through Twitter and other social media. Seems like an overwhelming task? Nevertheless, this is exactly what Vestas set out to achieve led by Group SVP and CMO Morten Albæk, the creative mind behind the concept, approximately 12 months before the WindMadeTM label was first presented to the general public in January 2011.
WindMadeTM: A truly novel marketing, CSR, philanthropy, PR, sustainability and business development initiative Vestas, having pioneered the wind industry more than 30 years ago and in the process installed more than 43,000 turbines across six continents, believed that creating a global movement for wind energy was not only necessary in order to sustain their business in a situation where the traditional market driver, governments, had failed to do so at the expected rate, but was also Vestas’ responsibility as the committed creator of the wind energy industry. By bringing resources from corporations and NGOs together in a emerging model designed to overcome the flaws of the failed purely capitalistic market model, Vestas saw an opportunity to combine global marketing, CSR and philanthropy with solid business development. In perceiving capitalism and humanism as each others’ prerequisites rather than antagonistic forces, Vestas hopes to create new market opportunities in liaison with core partners from the corporate and non-corporate sphere to unite behind a shared objective of ensuring a clean, prosperous future for next generations. The idea, although complex and highly ambitious, is to drive the global adoption of wind energy by convincing the world’s largest consumer brands to stick a label on their products informing about the source of energy. This is good news not only for the future of the planet we inhibit, but also for Vestas’ future profitability. Global Wind Study As part of the rigorous analysis preceding the actual concept development, Vestas surveyed more than 25,000 respondents across 20 markets in a Global Wind Study conducted by TNS Gallup to investigate the consumer interest and sentiment for the WindMadeTM label.
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The survey base proved a strong interest: 76% responded positively to “renewable energy as a good solution to mitigate climate changes”, and 60% saw a consumer label such as WindMadeTM as “important to have on products as consumer guidance”. Vestas will continue to monitor the global consumer interest for wind power in general, and WindMadeTM in particular, to ensure that future decisions are based on the same level of rigour as in the first phase of the project. Global Corporate Wind Energy Ranking As part of the process, Vestas also pioneered the creation of a Global Corporate Wind Energy Ranking to report on the largest global consumer brands’ procurement of wind and other renewable energy sources. With the significant gap between corporations’ promise to use renewable energy and their current level of consumption, Vestas saw a benefit in providing this transparency to consumers to catalyse the demand for products made from wind energy at the retail shelf. Developed in co-operation with Bloomberg, the official data provider of WindMadeTM, the ranking will be released together with a whitepaper outlining the major trends and developments of corporate investments in wind power. The surveyed companies are selected from the Bloomberg 500 Index (global companies ranked by market capitalisation) as well as the MSCI World Index (an index of approxi-
mately 1,660 companies from 24 countries). The data come from extensive Bloomberg research, aggregated Bloomberg energy data, Carbon Disclosure Project, Environmental Protection Agency (US) and other sources.
“There has already been substantial progress in implementing the UN Global Compact Blueprint. [For example,] the world’s first consumer label for products made with wind energy has been created. It is called WindMadeTM. We hope it will accelerate a transformation towards green growth.” 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon (Davos, World Economic Forum, January 28, 2011) Significant press coverage Referenced by a highly successful online US media headed by Tina Brown, Chief Editor of Newsweek, as “the shiny new brainchild of a unique consortium of leading businesses and organisations,” WindMadeTM generally received overwhelmingly positive coverage in global media. Even the critical press seemed to accept the initiative as a brilliant way for Vestas to accelerate the demand for wind
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, DAVOS, JANUARY 28, 2011 Sitting on stage at the official announcement of WindMadeTM in the Kirchner Museum in Davos, host of the prestigious World Economic Forum, was a powerful coalition of founding partners in support of the WindMadeTM initiative. The partner organisations were represented by their top executives, i.e. UN Global Compact Executive Director Georg Kell, WWF Director General Jim Leap, GWEC Secretary General Steve Sawyer, PwC LLP Chairman Bob Moritz, Bloomberg New Energy Finance CEO Michael Liebreich as well as the representatives from Vestas, CEO Ditlev Engel and CMO Morten Albæk, the initiative’s originator. The panel discussion was lively, with the WindMadeTM partners providing a balanced but strong support of the initiative and expressing their specific role and reason for participating. Global press was represented by some of the most influential global media such as the New York Times and Danish TV networks were on the premises to cover the reflections of Vestas’ CEO Ditlev Engel straight after the announcement. As one of few actionable initiatives tied to the World Economic Forum’s overall focus on the climate and energy January 28 at 8 am, Davos, Switzerland.
challenge, WindMadeTM and Vestas could not have asked for a better
Tina Brown, Chief Editor of Newsweek, and selected panellists.
beginning of their journey.
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power. Despite Vestas’ obvious commercial interest in success for WindMadeTM, the spirit of the initiative is synthesised by an online media stating: “Grain of salt aside, it’s hard to argue that such encouragement is a bad thing”. Press coverage was extensive with mentions in international media such as the New York Times, Reuters International, The Guardian, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and Huffington Post. Television coverage was also extensive with the Danish public service stations DR1 and TV2 both running lengthy features and CNN and Reuters broadcasting interviews with Vestas’ CEO Ditlev Engel. Finally, as maybe the strongest indication of the potential for catalysing a global consumer movement, WindMadeTM also made a huge splash in the social media space with millions informed through twitter mentions and hundreds of blogs written about WindMadeTM. The extensive press coverage proved to be a successful platform since Vestas’ investment in WindMadeTM during the preceding 12 months, including a donation to establishing the NGO, was all recouped in PR value in less than three weeks. Vestas’ motivation for developing WindMadeTM WindMadeTM is an excellent example of how Vestas via a totally new approach is pursuing visionary, innovative and novel business development. In a context where the wind power industry holds far more potential than is currently realised, a true industry leader committed to progress is not afraid of questioning existing business models and pushing the boundaries for growth.
This is exactly what Vestas is doing with WindMadeTM in an attempt to pave the way for an emerging customer segment consisting of consumer brand companies. Vestas is demonstrating true industry leadership by forging unprecedented partnerships to break down barriers to corporate wind energy investments. This segment holds a potential for both wind energy and Vestas beyond pure megawatts. With the “brand of wind” struggling to gain traction and awareness among ordinary citizens, global consumer brands like Google, LEGO, Microsoft, Nike, etc. offer a platform to vocally support wind as a renewable technology that is far more powerful than any campaign Vestas could ever develop on their own. The journey ahead for Vestas and WindMadeTM Following the announcement, Vestas was contacted by numerous wind energy stakeholders, including noteworthy global consumer brands, indicating a strong interest in WindMadeTM. With the project having positioned Vestas as the innovation leader when it comes to developing the wind energy business, the focus is now on ensuring that the consumer label is implemented with the same rigour as the initial announcement. And subsequently that more wind turbines are erected and plugged into the grid with a significant share of these being manufactured by Vestas.
WINDMADETM FACTS AND FIGURES WindMadeTM is a global initiative dedicated to increasing corporate investments in wind power by educating consumers about a specific corporation’s use of wind energy and raising the demand for products that are made from this clean and renewable energy source. WindMadeTM draws attention to the fact that we cannot continue to consume products that are made from energy sources that cause so much harm to the environment. The label is a step forward in the process towards raising consumer awareness and displaying the importance of sustainable, renewable energy. Using a physical entity, a label, ensures that the public simply cannot ignore the effects that their purchases have on the environment.
WindMadeTM founding partners
The participating companies will decide whether the whole corporation or only specific physical locations and/or products are to be certified. The final standard is developed by a technical committee of renewable energy and label verification experts and will be subject to a public consultation beginning in the spring of 2011. WindMadeTM will be managed through an independent NGO which Vestas – as the lead sponsor for WindMade™ – will fund for the first three years of operation. The aim is to launch the first version of the WindMadeTM standard on the Global Wind Day in June, 2011.
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