Tina Mayn, VELUX innovation

Thank you. And what a pleasure to be here today with such an important topic about how we build the future. Let me start by a little bit about me. I'm in Velux and I work with creating our future products through innovation and product development. In Velux, we are an organization of about 500 people working on this purpose, located in four different locations in Denmark. When we look into the future, we believe it's important to look into our heritage. Our founder in the 1940s transformed attics into livable spaces by bringing daylight and fresh air. That innovation DNA is still with us. Our product history started with roof windows, then pivot hinge, standardized products, accessories, electrification, and now smart windows through Velux Active. Our clear purpose now is to create well-being for people and the planet by transforming spaces using daylight and fresh air. We have launched 'It's Our Nature' – a commitment to unprecedented sustainability targets. For 2030, we aim to innovate digital products for sustainable living, reduce our product carbon footprint by 50%, and green all our packaging. Many homes have poor indoor climate; by automating roof windows, we can improve ventilation. For example, connecting a cooker hood with a roof window creates faster ventilation. On carbon reduction, 90% of our carbon footprint is in the physical product. We are working on innovations like using PET bottles for textiles. On packaging, we have already eliminated plastic and reduced costs. We are implementing tools and training for all employees to measure impact. Our sustainability promise is to be proactive in sustainable buildings through digitalization and lower carbon footprint. One example: we designed a new building component that brings 52% more daylight. We have started the journey, building on our past, and now bringing concrete solutions. I also want to highlight the importance of external partnerships. Over the last few years, we have engaged with startups through Urban Tech, a program for sustainable cities. We also invite young students to apply for the Healthy Homes design competition. Finally, we are renovating an old wooden warehouse in Østbirk, where Velux was founded, into a modern innovation center that will be a lighthouse for sustainable renovation. That concludes my talk. Thank you very much for listening.

And you can say what stems back to the founder is we also have to make money, so just to stick to that, because if we don't make money, we can't reinvest. And if we can't reinvest, we can't do what our founder set out for, which is to give back to society. So the better we do, the more we can give back. It becomes a circle. You need to make sure you do solutions and business in a way where you continuously make a good profit, a sustainable profit. That was the whole principle of our founder, because he was helped when he started out creating Velux, helped by a lot of people in the local community, so he decided that's what he was going to do going forward through the foundation. So of course making a profit is our overall goal, because that will sustain that we have a sustainable system. Otherwise you will destroy that system. Yes, so the foundations are focused on many things, but I'm representing the foundations.

Absolutely. So Urban Tech was a program that we started three years ago with the main purpose of finding solutions for sustainable cities. We did that in a partnership with Kovi and Evie, with Realtania and Industries Fund, in order to tap into the globe on who has some solutions out there in the startup environment that maybe could help for a better sustainable living, because we all know that urbanization has really challenged the way of living in big cities and the access to fresh air and daylight. During that program, for example, we worked with a startup that made a very accessible sensor to measure outdoor air quality. We are very interested in understanding the indoor air quality, but what about combining those two? When should you not open your window or when should you definitely open your window? So we combine some of these new technologies which should help us. So I think the technologies we've looked at in Urban Tech are all about how we can help ourselves become more sustainable but also have a better well-being in the cities.

It's of course a major change for us because as you say, we have lived quietly and we have also thought that we could do everything ourselves. But then when you start opening up, that is a change, and for some people that is a little bit scary, but overall I think everybody's embracing it a lot because it is very inspiring to sit with somebody who manages to do something in 10 weeks where we maybe take half a year on the same topic. I think we also have an organization in Velux where everybody is very willing to learn, so I've actually been very surprised. It's been a strong learning, and everybody is really engaging into this because they also see the necessity in the fact that we cannot make all the solutions ourselves. That's also a learning: we need to engage with partners and startups out there in order to succeed with our targets. We will not succeed by ourselves.

I think the biggest learning at least for us at the beginning was that the startup comes with one expectation and we have a different expectation, and that's where it kind of clashes. So managing expectations from the beginning is the key. And then of course, there are startups where it doesn't end up in a stronger collaboration, and how do you then go your separate ways? And also, I would say it goes the other way: we probably looked at a startup two years ago and didn't really understand their value, where we now say they were actually onto something. So learning how to spot the actual opportunity in terms of a solution that is good for the future is an art in itself. So we also learned we probably need to get better at that. So manage expectations, know how to part if it doesn't work, and spot the really interesting innovations.

Yes, and it depends on what is the sustainability bottom line. We are as of next year for the first time going to measure the impact of the changes we make to our products year over year in terms of CO2. We are setting ourselves a target: we need to do this improvement on this particular product category during 2022. So very granulated pressure, and it's the first time we're going to do it next year. We are also working on what are the right KPIs. Right now we know we need to measure our CO2 or carbon footprint impact from our products, so that's what we're measuring. But maybe that's too simple; maybe we need to introduce even further targets. So we're definitely working on that, but from the 1st of January, that will be one of the KPIs we are introducing in Velux.

It all depends on what area, but if we take our product development and Innovation Center, we actually have a very wide range of people: not just engineers, but also real carpenters who understand what it means to build a roof window into the roof and the challenges. We have engineers, designers, architects. We have a department called the front end where we work with future concepts. As we are digitalizing and electrifying our footprint, we also need employees who are able to work with that and figure out how to implement it across many products. So it's a very wide range of people. We don't have enough female, and we are also a lot of Danish people, so we probably could need a little bit more diversity and inclusion into our team. That's something we are working on. But from a trade or educational background, we have a very diverse team, and that creates a lot of good innovation.

The actual sensor is in the room, so it's not embedded today in the window, but it might be in the future. It measures various elements in the room that you would like to follow, and via our app, depending on what is the CO2 level in the room, the window will automatically open or close so that you have the right indoor climate. We also have rain sensors outside, so if it rains, the window will close to prevent water from coming in. So the sensor measuring indoor climate is in the room.

We are doing both. We have a lot of talented people that if we train them, they'll be able to lift the challenge. But we are also bringing in new people who have specifically focused their education or work life on sustainability. The majority of the work we're doing is training, as I mentioned during my presentation. We are building up tools and training in order to succeed. It's not just tools; it's a lot of training, and that's a huge task for us.