Vestas: Building a Sustainable Supply Chain for Wind Energy

As a leader in wind energy, Vestas is pursuing sustainability targets that place demands on its value chain.

Vestas is not only focused on the renewable energy its turbines produce but also on the environmental cost of manufacturing them.

It has a goal to produce zero-waste turbines by 2040 and achieve carbon neutrality in its own operations by 2030 without using carbon offsets.

Lisa Ekstrand, Vice President and Head of Sustainability at Vestas, says: “Integrating sustainability into everything we do is a part of our vision to become the global leader in sustainable energy solutions.”

This vision extends deep into Vestas's supply chain, where the majority of its environmental footprint originates.

For context, Vestas said the turbines it produced and shipped in 2024 are expected to avoid 455 million tonnes of CO₂e over their operational lifetime. Vestas's focus is now on reducing the embedded emissions from its creation.

Decarbonising the turbine supply chain

A large portion of Vestas’s emissions footprint comes from its supply chain. According to Vestas, more than 80% of a turbine's footprint is from purchased materials, making supplier engagement a critical component of its strategy.

To address this, Vestas operates a supplier sustainability programme with the goal of achieving a 45% reduction in supply chain emissions intensity per MWh by 2030 compared to a 2019 baseline.

This involves working with strategic suppliers to measure their emissions and set their own science-based targets.

Henrik Andersen, President and CEO at Vestas, explains the internal motivation for this work.

"At Vestas, sustainability is the business we are in; it's one of the key purposes that our more than 29,000 employees come to work every day - to make the world a more sustainable place,” Andersen says.

This purpose is being translated into tangible supply chain actions.

Low-emission steel collaboration

A key partnership in this effort is with ArcelorMittal to source lower-carbon steel.

Steel and iron constitute 80-90% of a wind turbine's material mass, making its production a major source of emissions.

The collaboration involves using steel produced in an electric arc furnace powered by 100% wind energy, which melts 100% steel scrap. ArcelorMittal states this process results in a CO₂ reduction of at least 52% for an entire onshore tower.

ArcelorMittal also produces this low-carbon-emissions heavy plate steel in large dimensions, which can minimise the need for welding and its associated emissions.

Dieter Dehoorne, Head of Global Procurement at Vestas, says: “Finding ways to decarbonise the emissions produced during the raw material extraction and refinement of steel is vital for us and the industry in general.

"ArcelorMittal sees the partnership with ArcelorMittal and the adoption of low-emission steel as an important lever in reducing CO₂ emissions within the wind industry. Commitment from our customers is vital to enable the transition, so we are very happy that we can provide value to our customers with this solution.”

Advancing blade circularity

While its turbines are currently 85% recyclable, Vestas notes that the primary remaining challenge is the recycling of wind turbine blades.

These blades contain composite materials, primarily epoxy resin and glass fibre, which are difficult to separate and reuse.

To tackle this challenge, Vestas is part of the CETEC project, a research initiative alongside Olin Danish Technological Institute and Aarhus University.

The project’s goal is to develop a process that enables circularity for these thermoset composites.

In collaboration with other industrial partners, Vestas is working to scale the CETEC solution, which could allow for circular blade recycling without requiring changes to its existing design or material composition.

This focus on end-of-life material recovery is a critical step towards Vestas's goal of a zero-waste wind turbine.