Giving Compass' Take:

• Adele Peters at Fast Company writes about how a Danish energy company plans to eliminate carbon emissions entirely through a transition to offshore wind.

• How can this set the pace for other companies to switch to renewable energy? How can we help make that transition more affordable?

• Discover what you can do to reduce your own carbon footprint.

A decade ago, the largest energy company in Denmark based its business on fossil fuels and was responsible for a third of the country’s carbon footprint. The company has since changed its name—from Danish Oil and Natural Gas (yes, that’s DONG) to Ørsted, named after a Danish scientist—and is now among the largest renewable energy companies in the world. By 2025, it plans to be carbon neutral, making it the first major energy company in the world to reach that goal.

As the company—which is responsible for 49% of electricity production and 35% of heat production in Denmark, though it also has projects in other countries—started to phase out coal and sell off its oil and gas business, it simultaneously began scaling up offshore wind. It moved quickly. “We have been quite convinced all along that we saw the business opportunities in green and renewable energy and not in fossil fuels going forward, so we have also strategically decided to transform fast, and really build up a first-mover advantage in renewable energy,” Bøss says.

By 2040, it plans to eliminate emissions beyond its own operations to also include its supply chain. It’s working with the steel industry now, for example, to push manufacturers to quickly decarbonize the steel that it uses to build wind turbines.

“I think the journey that we have been through is, in a way, the same type of journey that the overall economy and many, many companies will have to travel. We need to find new and sustainable solutions to be able to inhabit our planet and not cause a very disruptive impact on the global ecosystems.”

Read the full article about how a Danish energy company plans to erase emissions by Adele Peters at Fast Company.