WindMade to promote renewable energy

Xinhua, January 30, 2011

The WindMade trustmark, the first consumer label identifying products made with wind power, was presented to the public Friday during the World Economic Forum.

WindMade, pioneered by Morten Albaek of the Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems, a wind-turbine manufacturer, told Xinhua that what shaped the idea was firstly the motivation of energizing the world with "clean, renewable wind at a level of 10 percent by 2020, a meteoric rise from today's approximate 2 percent."

Albaek, a senior vice president at Vestas, said the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the U.N. Global Compact, Bloomberg and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have joined as partners to promote clean energy use worldwide.

To Albaek, the wish to do more charity also helped to build the "non-profit" plan "by the uniting of leading consumer brands and civil society organizations."

Albaek said his group was eager "to have companies join the WindMade certification process and to see the WindMade label appear around the world on your favorite products and services."

He said his dream is that consumers would see the proportion of clean energy in the production when picking up a commodity -- just like looking at the ingredients label.

Albaek said WindMade's certification criteria will follow a strict independent methodology.

"WindMade's fundamental tenet is transparency, and therefore, has zero tolerance for greenwashing," Albaek said.

To be approved to become a club member of WindMade, companies must have at least 51 percent of their energy comprised of renewable energy.

Albaek also hoped emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, India and China will join WindMade and be dedicated to the promotion of wind energy.

Being confident that consumers in China will understand WindMade, Albaek said, "With the activation of these consumers along with the commitment of Chinese companies and markets to participate, WindMade will help escalate the adoption of renewable energy in the world."

Albaek told Xinhua that WindMade also aims at "raising funds for and awarding grants in emerging markets for wind energy."

He said he hopes that action would catalyze quantum leaps in wind energy use and then drive change.

"China is vital to that change," he said.

WindMade is not the single solution, he said, but it is "a powerful start that can catalyze significant shifts towards a new energy economy for our planet."

A global survey of more than 25,000 consumers across 20 markets has shown that a total of 92 percent of respondents believe that renewable energy is a good solution to mitigating climate change, and 70 percent of them feel WindMade will be relevant.

"Respondents in China specifically were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about WindMade," Albaek said.

With WindMade as a classic push-and-pull dynamic, Albaek believed that people will change their buying habits.

Seeing that the world's leading consumer brands will adopt wind energy and that consumers around the globe will reward them for doing so, Albaek said "it's a pretty good deal for the earth too."