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The UN launched 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015.
The aim of these goals is to promote economic, social,
and environmental sustainability.
In order for these goals to be successful, we
must all work together to create a better tomorrow.
We want to raise awareness about the SDGs and contribute in creating
a better world.
Sustainability is not just about how we treat our planet, but an interest
in the welfare of everyone and everything – from the environment to
animals and people.
Therefore, sustainability is measured in our ability to provide fair and
good living conditions for ourselves without exceeding the living
conditions of future generations.
At VisBlue, we want to ensure that future generations and our planet
will prosper and thrive, which is why we aspire to contribute to as
many SDGs as we can.
Because sustainability is a part of our DNA.
At VisBlue, we do not only see the point of implementing sustainability
in our business conducts for the sake of just our business.
We do it because we feel a strong obligation to do what we can to ensure
the environment and a certain quality of life for us and future generations.
The implementation of green energy and the transition of it is a
sustainable solution to the climate crisis we are facing.
With batteries, we can help to realise several of the SDGs by upgrading
our current energy infrastructure.
Because energy storage increases the progress, profit, and recycling of sustainable energy.
No one should die of or suffer from hunger and to fight hunger, sustainable agriculture is key, along with modern and innovative technologies.
Unsustainable farming leads to environmental degradation, drought, and loss of biodiversity, which results in a rising number of people becoming malnourished or hungry.
We support Goal 2 and Target 2.A through our installation on the Danish island. Our installation on Livø provides a basis for sustainable farming to take place.
Here, our battery provides the island with reliable electricity, by storing the surplus energy from the island’s renewables (solar panelsand a wind turbine) for later use.
This ensures that the farming on Livø is well on its way to depend 100% on renewable energy and phase out its old and polluting gensets.
Goal 4 is important to us, as we believe that education is a fundamental right. Through education we become innovative and acquire knowledge, which is a crucial part in securing the future for us and our planet.
With the help of NRGi’s Værdipulje, we contribute to Goal 4 and Target 4.7. We do this, by inviting schools around Denmark to visit us and our facilities, where we teach them about energy in general, energy storage, and the future of energy.
At the moment, more than 1,000 school children have visited us during the last year. We also invite other interested parties, such as municipalities and companies, to come by and experience our facilities and learn something new about energy, which we hope inspires thought and action.
We also work together with Aarhus University to help educate students and ensure a better quality of education. An example of how this is done is through the internships we offer at VisBlue (see Target 8.6).
But this is not all we do – we also take every chance we can to visitschools, municipalities, companies, etc. and educate them about energy, energy storage, and innovative thinking. This is something we want to keep doing to make sure that the word of green energy and sustainability is spread.
Everyone should have access to clean water and sanitation.
In order to ensure the availability of clean water, it is necessary to install modern and innovative technologies that enable this.
We support Goal 6 and Target 6.3, through a future installation at a Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) on the Dutch island Texel.
At the WWTP, Texel removes contaminants from their wastewater, whilst our battery solution will help reduce their carbon footprint and promote the island’s sustainable profile.
As daily improvements are to be found in the renewable energy scene, it can seem like cheap, reliable, and efficient energy lies just on our doorstep. However, much of this energy is lost, as it must be used within the hour it is generated.
We want to make sure that cheap, reliable, and efficient energy becomes a reality, by installing batteries that store surplus and unused quantities of sustainable energy. In this way, more of the renewable energy is utilised and as little as possible goes to waste, and our dependence on fossil fuels becomes significantly reduced, and in the long run non-existent.
We store the surplus energy that renewables, such as solar panels and wind turbines, generate, which results in a better utilisation rate of green energy. It also means that we help provide and secure people around the world with a stable access to affordable and clean electricity.
With the installation of batteries, we can help make affordable and clean energy an increasing part of the global energy mix, by making better use of renewable energy before 2030.
At the moment, we are working on optimising the effect of our battery solution. We are researching the efficiency of the electricity that enters and leaves the battery and we are increasing this efficiency.
Two of VisBlue’s co-founders work at Aarhus and Porto University, which means that we are in close contact with the University and research world. Because of this, we contribute with research and knowledge regarding energy, infrastructure, and clean technology, among others.
We participate in R&D projects through both national and international funding programmes. Examples of these projects are the Danish EUDP and Horizon from the EU (data: 2019). We share the findings from these projects in order to help promote access to research and knowledge within the field of clean energy. We share the findings on our website, newsletters, and social media accounts.
We contribute towards a more sustainable future, by expanding and upgrading the energy infrastructure. This will help both stabilise and optimise the grid in a sustainable manner.
We want to install our batteries on off-grid sites, islands, sites where the grid is unstable, and in developing countries, in connection with renewables. We have already installed batteries in off-grid site applications like (see Target 2.A).
Both decent work and economic growth are important to us and we want to make sure that we support proper and sustainable work and growth.
We believe that sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation are some of the best ways to promote economic growth, whilst simultaneously creating more jobs.
We want to share our story of being a product of entrepreneurship and inspire others to do the same. We have participated in both national and international funding programmes, such as the EUDP, which has helped us to grow from zero to twelve employees in the process of four years (data: 2019). Therefore, we want to spread the message, support, and encourage other start-ups and SMEs to embark on a similar journey.
Innovation and projects of such a nature are important to us as well. We support creativity and innovation, by participating in innovative projects, such as ORBATS, where we are developing an organic electrolyte for our battery solutions.
We want to take the lead and improve our resource efficiency. We do this by recycling and reusing the materials and resources from our old batteries.
We are researching replacing our vanadium electrolyte with an organic electrolyte (ORBATS project, see Target 8.3), for the purpose of decoupling the link between economic growth and environmental degradation. This will leave a much smaller impact on our planet and we strive to have finished our research and our organic electrolyte in use before 2030.
At VisBlue, we use subcontractors for specific parts of our battery, such as the pumps and pipes. This allows us to make our production more efficient and it allows us to focus on what we do best – assembling batteries and providing these with an intelligent cloud solution.
We have and will continue to hire young people with a newly finished degree. We encourage other enterprises and organisations to do so as well, as we have experienced success in integrating young and newly graduated people.
As VisBlue grows, we will by 2030 continue to hire whomever fits our work culture, as we do not discriminate. In 2030, we estimate that we will be 50 employees at VisBlue.
We support internships and educational programmes in any way that we can, and two of our former interns are now employed at VisBlue.
We have provided international internships for 15 students and we have had 10 student helpers employed at VisBlue (data: 2021).
Regarding our production, we strive procure our materials and resources in a sustainable and responsible way.
Child labour and modern slavery must be abolished, which is why we are in the process of making sure that our resources, such as the vanadium we use in our electrolyte is mined and extracted responsibly WITHOUT using child labour. If we should discover that the origin of our resources is questionable, we will find a new supplier. Read more about our responsible production in Target 12.2.
Modern and resilient infrastructure is the future, but this future must also be sustainable and innovative. And let’s not forget – it needs to function.
To meet our future aspirations of becoming 100% independent from fossil fuels, our current infrastructure must either be upgraded or replaced.
We believe that an upgrade of the energy grid is the most effective and sustainable solution to accompany our green goals for the future. In this way, we can accompany the increasing demand for solar panels, EVs, recharging points, heat pumps, etc.
Sustainable and reliable infrastructures are a necessary part of our future and we contribute to this by upgrading already existing infrastructure.
We contribute to the expansion of infrastructure through a project called Grid Connected. The point of this project is to install batteries in existing energy infrastructure, which helps to handle peak periods and stabilise the energy grid.
We want to promote sustainability within industries and focus on ensuring that infrastructure upgrades and industrialisation are done sustainably, by researching their needs for energy storage.
We have developed a simulation tool that can estimate both the price and size of a specific battery project.
We want to spread the word regarding clean and resilient infrastructure, and we want to be a part of this infrastructure by 2030.
We want to make sure that we have a presence in those places, where storage can complement renewable energy. In this way we are helping industries and companies to invest in sustainable infrastructure.Vi vil sikre os, at vi har tilstedeværelse de steder, hvor lagring kan supplere vedvarende energi. På den måde hjælper vi industrier og virksomheder med at investere i bæredygtig infrastrukture.
By 2030 we want to upgrade research and technology within sustainability and energy.
Before 2030, we expect to have a general upgrade of our current battery technology. This will result in an even more sustainable and efficient storage solution that will be suited for a larger range of applications, from residential to large scale projects.
By 2050, 70% of the world’s population will live in cities. Therefore, the cities and communities of the future must be sustainable, innovative, and inspirational.
We accompany energy storage with a cloud solution, which enables cities and communities to track their energy production and consumption. This allows them to set specific goals and to visualise these goals and data,which in return helps them to become even more sustainable.
We also offer a service agreement on our batteries. Through service, we can act proactively and prevent a crash, issues of short circuiting, or even see if a battery is not functioning ideally.
We assist housing associations with energy optimisation. We have installed battery solutions in two housing associations in Denmark, BOLIG+ and Lille Birkholm, and these two are examples of how we have optimised the energy production and consumption of such associations. Both projects have a payback period of ten years.
In all simplicity, we support Goal 11 in terms of monitoring, energy optimisation of cities, better utilisation rate of renewables, and stabilisation of the energy grid, which equals an increase in cities and communities’ sustainable profile.
We enhance the possibility for sustainable urbanisation to take place through intelligent cloud solutions, monitoring, service, higher utilisation rate of renewables, and energy optimisation (see Goal 11).
We allow sustainable urbanisation to thrive. Or better explained, the installation of energy storage in cities and communities allows for clean and affordable electricity to take place, which benefits every part of a city and community.
In this connection, we establish contact with municipalities and cities who are determined to become green and rely on 100% renewable energy. At the moment, we are in contact with several municipalities, including the municipality of Aarhus.
In this way, we support and actively reduce the environmental impact that cities and communities, large and small, have on our planet.
By 2030, according to the UN, all companies will include sustainability into their conducts. We support this inclusion of sustainability, by continuing to optimise the recycle and reuse of our production.
We strive to manage the resources and materials we use sustainably and responsibly. One of these resources is the vanadium we use in our batteries, and vanadium is easy to come by, as it is mined all over the world (Asia, Africa, Russia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and the US).
Vanadium is possible to extract as a biproduct of iron and steel production. Around 70-85% of vanadium is extracted from iron and steel slag. When procured this way, vanadium is not extracted on its own, but as a waste product. By 2030, we will become even more conscious of how we procure our resources and what type of resources we use.
At the moment, we are engaging in a dialogue with our suppliers, to ensure that the vanadium we procure is mined under fair conditions without the use of child labour and slavery (Target 8.7). As mentioned in Target 8.7, it is easy for us to switch supplier, if we should encounter sustainable or moral difficulties.
We also reuse the tanks that our vanadium comes in and use these as part of our finished product. This equals less waste and a better utilisation of the resources we use.
By 2030, we want to optimise the reuse and recycle of even more of our production.
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We manage our chemicals and waste in a responsible manner. This is a target that must be reached by 2020 – and it is a target that we have already reached (data: 2019).
100% of our chemical waste is passed on to the municipality of Aarhus, where they handle it responsibly from thereon.
99% of the material used in our batteries is recyclable.
By 2030, we want to continue reducing our waste in general and recycling old battery parts and reusing these in new battery solutions and/or reusing our liquid electrolyte in alloy for tools.
We contribute to Target 12.5 by responsibly reusing and recycling the waste from our production through waste sorting, such as separating paper and plastics.
In order to reduce ours and our customers’ waste generation, we offer our customers a buy back solution. This provides them with the choice to sell their battery back to us at the end of the product’s lifetime, eliminating their concerns for how to handle and recycle it. This equals a better economic setup and payback period for our customers, and it provides them with a product that embraces the cradle to cradle mindset.
Our buy back solution helps to establish a sustainable energy infrastructure, which combats the effects and changes of climate change.
Through the previous mentioned goals, we contribute to Goal 13, by modernising our infrastructure through installations of green energystorage solutions and through the creation of new jobs (see targets 8.3 and 8.5).
Our battery solutions help reduce the amount of CO2 that is emitted into our atmosphere every day.
At the moment, we are researching the carbon footprint of our battery solution, which will provide us with the possibility to map and visualise exactly how we contribute to the reduction of CO2, climate change, and its implications.
We contribute to Target 13.3 by improving education and teaching children and institutions about climate change and what we can do to reduce our impact on the planet.
Our contribution is further described in Target 4.7.
In order for sustainable development to flourish, international partnerships and collaborations are needed.
We contribute to Goal 17 through several international partnerships,where we collaboratively investigate possible installations and projects of our sustainable technology in Africa and in the rest of the world.
hi Tech & Industry Scandinavia has launched a new award, the hi Sustainable Development Award. The starting point of the award is the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
We are very proud to have won the hi Tech & Industrys first Sustainable Development Award ever!
