Anyway, the hope had always been that Velux's innovative 'lifetime carbon neutral' concept - a plan to invest heavily in nature-based solutions that would offset all the carbon dioxide produced throughout the firm's near 80-year history - would be emulated by other companies, Reumert says. "We believe that if companies have the possibility, they should not only reduce their emissions dramatically going forward, but look over their shoulder and see what the company has left behind," she argues. "We are working with CO2, but for other companies it could be other types of pollution, such as plastic waste."
The Danish window manufacturer eventually unveiled its bold plan in September after more than two years of planning, setting out how it would work in close partnership with green group WWF on a number of forest conservation projects that should settle the company's historic carbon debt of 5.6 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2041. Velux also announced that, moving forward, it would be aligning its operations and full value chain with the more ambitious 1.5C warming scenario recommended by the Paris Agreement, an ambition that will require the company to overhaul the way it manufactures, sources, and transports its windows.