Your historical CO2 emissions to zero, it can be done this way!

VELUX has started a special project to reduce their CO2 emissions. They want to reduce their historical emissions to zero by their centennial year in 2041. The inclusion of four skylights as Category 1 products in the National Environmental Database is one of the steps toward this ambitious sustainability goal.

In 2041, VELUX will celebrate its 100th anniversary. By that year, the company aims to have reduced and captured CO2 emissions from its own production (scope 1 and 2) to the point where there are no emissions left at all since 1941. 'To do this, we have calculated what our CO2 emissions have been since the company was founded,' explains Marcel Vreeken, public affairs manager at VELUX. 'In cooperation with WWF, we finance forest conservation and restoration projects in tropical forests. The landscape is developed to halve deforestation and restore natural forest that can improve biodiversity and the livelihoods of local communities.' So far, three projects initiated by VELUX are underway in Uganda, Madagascar and Vietnam.

Reduce footprint

The cooperation between VELUX and WWF thus goes beyond emission reduction in the VELUX Group's own operations and value chain. In it, the Group has set a goal of reducing CO2 emissions from operations by 100% (scope 1 and 2) and halving emissions from their value chain (scope 3) by 2030.

'Only by cooperating in the chain and sharing knowledge can we reduce the CO2 footprint of our products,' says Vreeken. 'After all, it's not just about scope 1 and 2 emissions, you also want to significantly reduce scope 3. For scope 3, you have to challenge your suppliers to reduce their CO2 emissions themselves.'

One example is the cooperation with aluminum producer Hydro. This manufacturer uses a lot of renewable energy and recycled material for the production process. As a result, the aluminum has a slightly different composition. 'This affects our production process. We are studying how best to use this 'green aluminum.' We are doing this in a long-term cooperation with the supplier.'

The partnership with Norwegian aluminum supplier Hydro has been established as early as 2022. By using Hydro's low-carbon products, VELUX can reduce carbon emissions per kilogram of aluminum used in the production of VELUX roof windows, flat roof windows and accessories such as shutters and blinds. 'With this collaboration, we aim to achieve less than two kilograms of carbon per kilogram of aluminum by 2030. This is less than one-fifth of the current European average.'

Measuring the environmental impact

It is also important to accurately inform customers about the environmental impact of products. There are several ways to make this concrete, Vreeken says. "Sustainability initiatives are measurable and recorded according to the high standards of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). In addition, we have chosen to measure sustainability activities against the EcoVadis yardstick. In 2024, the VELUX Group received 78 points, placing VELUX among the top 3% of all companies assessed. We received a gold medal for that, which of course we are very proud of. The next step is to get enough points for the platinum medal. We hope to achieve that in the foreseeable future.'

In the National Environmental Database

Four VELUX products are now listed in the National Environmental Database (NMD) as a so-called "category 1 product. Category 1 refers to a manufacturer-specific environmental declaration, as opposed to the industry-average category 2 declarations and the brand-independent category 3 declaration. Category 1 thus reflects a more accurate environmental score of the product

'That challenges you as a manufacturer to investigate how to improve this figure. In this, we have come a long way. Since a statement in the NMD is valid for five years, a company can theoretically sit back for five years after their product is included. We don't. To get into the NMD, you have to have an LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) made of the product in question. We can now use that knowledge from our LCA to see what knobs we can turn to keep improving our products while minimizing our environmental impact.'