Sustainability Performance 2020

Blade Life Cycle Virgin Blade End-of-Life Blade Turbine Waste Marerials Virgin Materials Other Industries Recycled Materials Recycling Recovery Disposal Prevention Reuse Repurpose Bridges Sculptures Repurpose Transport Lifetime extension Transport Disposal Manufacturing waste Incineration Landfill Co-prosessing Reuse Cement Kiln I n s t a l l a t i o n D e c o m m i s s i o n i n g M a n u f a c t u r i n g F r a g m e n t a t i o n R e c y c l i n g Blade life cycle and industry effort As we continue to improve our operations and maintain a car- bon neutral business, we believe technological innovations combined with joint industry efforts are necessary to enable a truly sustainable and circular product. Together with other leading companies, we strive to optimize the use of natural resources throughout the lifetime of a blade, aiming to give these resources a new life within a circular economy. As a blade manufacturer, our position in the value chain enables us to influence the emissions that occur upstream, before a blade is installed on a wind turbine. More than 70% of emissions from the life cycle of a blade occur during resource extraction, thus improving the overall sustainability of our products starts by engaging with our supply chain. LM Wind Power actively works to introduce more recycled materials into blade designs, for instance by increasing the use of recycled PET (rPET) as a core material in blades rather than balsa. In 2020, nearly 50% of the core material we used was rPET, com- pared to 1.5% in 2018. We also work to optimize resource use by reducing the waste in our own production. The effort is further reported on p.24. In addition to our waste reduction initiatives on the shopfloor, we are committed to the ZEBRA (Zero wastE Blade ReseArch) proj- ect, where LM Wind Power will design and manufacture fully sustainable wind turbine blades. Achieving zero-waste blades relies on the full value chain, which is represented in the ZEBRA consortium – from development of materials, to blade manufacturing, wind turbine operation, and eventually recy- cling of the decommissioned blade material as well as the waste from blade manufacturing sites. While ZEBRA aims at designing the blades of the future with sustainability in mind, it’s also important to establish large- scale, sustainable solutions for recycling the blades that are currently in service, when they reach their end of life. There are already technologies that can recycle wind turbine blades – the most mature are mechanical grinding, cement co-process- ing and pyrolysis. The challenge is to establish a viable value chain from cradle to cradle scalable to handle the coming vol- umes of end-of-life blade waste along with composite waste from other sectors. In 2020, LM Wind Power joined the Decom- Blades consortium and in January 2021 announced the start of a three-year project – funded by the Innovation Fund Denmark – that brings together leading players in the wind industry, recycling companies and universities to form the basis to com- mercialize viable blade recycling solutions. As a blade designer and manufacturer, we can influence the sustainability of our products by integrating life cycle thinking into our design processes. However, cross-sector partnerships are also needed to establish recycling infrastructure and a mar- ket for recycled blade material. Going forward, we will continue to actively participate in industry conversations and research to improve sustainability throughout the blade life cycle. 27 | LM WIND POWER SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE 2020