Creating a diverse and inclusive renewable energy sector

A cornerstone of our culture is the belief in equal rights and opportunities. With a growing global footprint, we believe in creating an inclusive workforce and supply chain through safe spaces for all identities. 

Why is an inclusive workforce and supply chain important?

 
A just and green energy build-out can only succeed if it’s inclusive and equitable. At Ørsted, that starts with our own business and operations. We aspire to attract, develop, and retain a diverse workforce while building an inclusive supply chain that reflects the worldwide community we serve.  

What are we doing? 


Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is embedded in the core of our approach and global growth. We continuously work to improve our organisation’s gender balance and expand our diversity efforts and initiatives beyond our own workforce, and not limited to gender.  

How are we doing?  


A current key focus for this programme is improving the gender balance within Ørsted.  

Latest updates from 2022  

  • We’re maturing employees’ understanding of DE&I. More than 1,850 employees attended live trainings, and over 600 completed our dedicated e-learnings on inclusion. DE&I is now part of the onboarding programme for every employee, and this year, we focused on upskilling our Management Team and HR community as essential drivers for further progress.  
  • Due to legal restrictions, especially within the EU, gathering data points on information beyond gender is a challenge. We’re working on finding the best way forward to improve our data to make data-driven decisions. One initiative that’s helped us do that is our self-identification campaign in the US, where we collected data on race, ethnicity, caregiver status, gender identity, and sexual orientation to help create more inclusive environments for underrepresented communities. 

  • At the end of 2021, we set an ambition to improve our gender balance and are aiming for a 40:60 (women:men) ratio by 2030 overall, but also at all leadership levels. Through our newly launched sponsorship programme, we aim to strengthen the exposure, learning opportunities, and mentoring available to our talented women leaders to help them progress to more senior leadership positions.  

  • We continue to support and mature our global ØrstedIN inclusion networks, providing development opportunities, allocating funding, and establishing clear communication lines for feedback to ensure alignment with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team.

  • We’re auditing several processes to create a fairer and more equitable working environment. Based on employee input, we reviewed and enhanced our global bullying, discrimination, and harassment policy and process. 

  • We created a new global policy on parental leave to provide more flexibility and support for all parents employed by Ørsted. Primary caregivers are granted a minimum of 18 weeks of fully paid leave, and secondary caregivers 12 weeks of fully paid leave. 

  • We’re working on connecting diverse businesses with our US operations. Diverse businesses are those which are 51% or more owned, managed and controlled by members of underrepresented groups (such as for example women, veterans, racial and ethnic groups, people with disabilities or LGBTQ+ communities). We’re building key relationships with relevant organisations to broaden our supplier network and coaching diverse businesses through the process of joining our supply chain. 

What’s next?  

We aim to integrate our DE&I efforts into structures beyond our workforce and strengthen processes and practices that promote diversity in all its forms.

We’ll continue to diversify our pool of talent, find ways to include more diverse businesses into our supply chains, and increase our equity efforts.

Key information 


Partnerships 

Through our relevant networks, we participate in knowledge sharing and strive towards the common agenda to create more diverse and inclusive environments: 

  • Windclusion
  • Above & Beyond 
  • UN Women’s Empowerment Principles
  • Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy 

International frameworks 

  • UN LGBTI Standards of Conduct for Business 
  • UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 
  • UN Women Working Group  

Governance 

Accountability lies with our Chief Human Resources Officer.


Policies

This programme contributes towards the following Sustainable Development Goals: 

sustainability programme

Skills and talent for the green transformation  

We’re working to develop talent within Ørsted, grow the renewable energy workforce, and build the next generation of green energy professionals