Enabling our clients to operate more sustainably: Ørsted

Almost everything we do across Venterra is intended to help developers to operate as effectively and efficiently as possible – and therefore as sustainably as possible.

By saving wind farm developers time, money, and resources, we also minimise their environmental impact, for example, by reducing unnecessary travel, vessel time, and energy use. Meanwhile, several of Venterra companies provide a range of sustainability-related services – such as environmental surveys, impact assessments, and more environmentally‑friendly alternatives to traditional products or processes.

Right now, many of the sustainability benefits we bring to developers are implicit (i.e. they are a by-product of more efficient operations). As the sector matures, we expect developers to become more conscious of their environmental performance, and we will help them to monitor, manage and report on their impact.

Read our 2023 Sustainability Report

Here's a perspective from Anthony Dvarskas, Biodiversity Lead for Offshore North America at the Danish multi‑national energy company Ørsted, a key client of Venterra:

Sustainability is integral to how Ørsted operates as a business... Across everything the company does, we are guided by how and where we can create the most value for both society and our business. Ørsted’s vision is to create a world that runs entirely on green energy. We believe that the global transition to renewable energy is the most important step we can take to counter climate change. But our commitment to sustainability goes wider than the type of energy we produce. Aiming to be a globally recognised sustainability leader, we have defined four related focus areas – climate, nature, people, and governance – and, across each of these, we have set out clear commitments, priorities and performance measures.

One of our goals is to have a net-positive impact on biodiversity… Ørsted has set the ambition that all new renewable energy projects we commission from 2030 onwards should deliver a net-positive biodiversity impact. This means that we will not only avoid, minimise, and compensate for any impact on nature during the lifetime of our projects – we will also actively help restore and enhance ecosystems. Clearly, we go to great lengths to understand the environments and ecosystems in which we work and monitor the impact we have. We will achieve this ambition by working closely with NGOs and other stakeholders, investing in projects like the restoration of salt marshes, removal of ghost gear from marine areas, and the protection of breeding and foraging birds.

Examples from the world of offshore wind include our investment in salt marsh, seagrass, and oyster restoration in the UK and in “cod pipes” in the North Sea, which are intended to provide habitat for juvenile and adult Atlantic cod.

Discipline and rigour in sustainability management and reporting is vital… Ørsted was among the first companies in the world, and the first in the energy sector, with a validated science-based net-zero targets for our carbon emissions. That means our approach is aligned with the latest climate science, and our performance is independently validated by the by the science-based targets initiative (SBTi). We have also been a first mover in aligning with the European Sustainability Reporting Standards and are an early adopter of the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures.

To achieve our sustainability objectives, we need a sustainable supply chain… we aim to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across our whole value chain (scope 1-3) by 2040. This means that, as well as decarbonising our business, we are relying on our supply chain partners to decarbonise their businesses. Similarly, we have committed to either reuse, recycle, or recover all of the wind turbine blades and solar panels in our global portfolio, and we need our suppliers to help us. The same principles feed through to our social commitments. We recognise that not all our suppliers are as far along their sustainability journey as Ørsted, so we will work with them and support them. But will also be looking to them for engagement, and for them to disclose their respective commitments and performance.

My own background is as a marine scientist and my focus area is marine biodiversity… this includes the benthic monitoring of offshore wind locations, which is where we work with Venterra company INSPIRE Environmental. We rely on companies like INSPIRE to help us monitor our environmental impact to ensure we are on track to meeting our biodiversity ambition. Increasingly, we will also need them to demonstrate their own sustainability commitments and disclose their performance.

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