Yesterday evening at the start of the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race in Cape Town harbour, Vestas staged a happening in which a South African children’s choir sang from a boat to demand action on climate change, energy poverty and water scarcity.
The company has a team in the round-the-world race competing as Team Vestas Wind. A flotilla of more than 12 boats met Vestas Wind’s skipper, Chris Nicholson, and his crew as they set sail for Abu Dhabi. More than 100 children from the townships around Cape Town gave their performance from one of the boats.
“Energy is the key challenge of the 21st century,” Morten Albæk, the company's CMO and group senior vice president, said in a press release about the event.
“Vestas is dedicating its participation in the Volvo Ocean Race to raise awareness about the critical energy choices the world is facing – and the fact that wind energy is part of the solution.”
COP21 campaign
Vestas is engaged in a campaign called ‘A Race We Must Win’ to demand action from world leaders at the COP21 meeting in Paris next year. “In light of the risk of catastrophic climate change, 1.3 billion people living without reliable access to electricity, and 56 percent of available fresh water resources being consumed by electricity production, we saw children today demanding a better future,” Albæk said.
“Energy has a key role in this, and that’s the bigger race we must win.”
Vestas proposes a price on carbon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the deployment of sustainably powered mini-grids to provide energy for currently underserviced communities, and the reduction of energy-related water use.
See footage of the happening here:
