The Most Sustainable Company in the World
Change is possible
We’re ranked the most sustainable company in the world in the Corporate Knights 2020 Global 100 index of most sustainable corporations. A decade ago, we were one of the most fossil fuel intensive energy companies in Europe.
The Global 100 top rank is a humbling recognition of our transformation from a fossil-fuel based energy company to a global green energy company in the past decade. As the global leader in offshore wind, we’ve substantially grown our business while significantly reducing our carbon emissions. We have reduced our carbon emissions by 86%, and by 2025, we’ll be carbon neutral in our energy generation and operations. We also have a target of achieving a carbon neutral footprint by 2040. We’re reducing emissions much faster than what climate science outlines as necessary to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Corporate Knights’ Global 100 sustainability index
Each year, Corporate Knights rank the 100 most sustainable companies in the world, ranking the top 1% on corporate sustainability performance. As the only one this ranking is cross-sectoral, including industrials, financial, IT, consumer and healthcare sectors.
Read more
We must act now
Change is critical as the world faces the climate emergency. Science tells us that we need to halve global carbon emissions by 2030 to avoid climate catastrophe, yet emissions continue to rise year on year. Almost 75% of global emissions come from energy from fossil fuels, so fighting climate changes makes the transition to renewable energy vital.
While we’re proud and grateful to be ranked the most sustainable company in the world, we’re painfully aware that the world must speed up green action to stay below the 1.5°C limit for global warming that is outlined in the Paris Agreement on climate change. Countries and businesses must take active, ambitious steps to reduce their emissions, and they must act now. We believe that our transformation is proof that change is possible. Read more about taking action in our paper.
Becoming the most sustainable company in the world
Transforming an energy company the size of Ørsted has not been easy, but it was necessary. We made the decision to change our business based on the realisation that fossil fuels were neither environmentally nor financially sustainable. Our key drivers for combating climate change are:
Phase out coal
Our business was initially based on fossil fuels, and we were one of the most coal-intensive energy companies in Europe. But we dismantled our fossil fuel business and now focus entirely on renewables. We’ll completely phase out the use of coal by 2023 and generate nearly 100% green energy by 2025. Read more about our renewable energy solutions.
Offshore wind energy
We develop offshore wind, onshore wind, solar energy and storage solutions, and are the global leader in offshore wind. Through innovation and large-scale deployment of offshore wind technology, we’ve helped bring down the cost of offshore wind. Today, it’s cheaper than newly built coal- and gas-fired power plants in most parts of the world. It’s a game changer that has lifted the offshore wind industry from a niche to a global and rapidly growing industry with the potential to deliver green energy to hundreds of millions of people.
Next steps: decarbonising our supply chain
As we’re close to having eliminated the carbon emissions from our energy production, we’re now embarking on the next frontier in our decarbonisation journey. Our commitment is to halve the carbon emissions from our energy trading and our supply chain by 2032, as compared with 2018.
We do this by gradually phasing out natural gas trading activities while increasing the green share of power traded. We also engage our suppliers to reduce carbon emissions from the manufacture and installation of renewable energy. At the same time, we encourage them to set emission reduction targets aligned with climate science and to run their operations on green energy.
This will help us achieve carbon neutrality across the company's entire carbon footprint by 2040, ten years ahead of the global target for net-zero emissions as required by climate science to limit global warming to 1.5ºC.
The necessary green technologies are at hand, and if countries and corporations work together to really speed up the green transformation, we still have a chance to keep global warming within 1.5°C. As I see it, we owe it to the world. - Henrik Poulsen, CEO, Ørsted
Building green energy in a sustainable way
A world that runs entirely on green energy will halt climate change, spur social development and fuel economic growth. But the pursuit of this vision must take place sustainably.
As a frontrunner in the global green energy revolution, we want to build green energy in a sustainable way and avoid or limit any potential negative impacts arising from the green transformation.
For us, this means incorporating sustainable growth programmes in our business strategy, protecting biodiversity, paying fair tax, and promoting employee diversity with a focus on female leadership.
FAQ
