Cases

Verdo and

SPONSORSHIPS In 2021, we supported: • Randers FC • Randers HK • Harbour Challenge Randers • Hornbæk Idræt & KulturCenter • Værket • Randers Teater • Randers Regnskov • Randers Festuge • BROEN Randers • Kræftens Bekæmpelse and Knæk

Cancer • Herning Blue Fox • HC Midtjylland • HFH • Studsgård Gymnastik & Idrætsforening

Social contract – SOCIETY

society

As a purpose-driven company, it is in our DNA to give back and contribute to the development of our local communities. That is why we engage in leisure and cultural life, and support local sports. For example, in Herning, we sponsor Herning Blue Fox and HC Midtjylland. In Randers, we are the main sponsor of Randers FC, and have been involved since the club’s inception. We also sponsor Værket in Randers and Randers Teater. We are proud to help add life and energy to the initiatives and institutions that strengthen the community and local cohesion.

Part of our energy also goes into demonstrating and creating career paths, sharing our knowledge and holding various events for children and young people in our local areas. We help to host events such as Water Day, where local school children take part in a variety of activities that focus on water and its importance. We also partner with educational institutions and give students, trainees and apprentices tangible insight into working life.

When we play an active role in the local communities we are present in, the aim is also to create an attractive foundation for a vibrant and growing business community. We particularly support sustainable projects and initiatives. We prefer to do this in partnership with other local players, because we best succeed when we work together to make the right imprint on the future.

At Verdo, we work every day to protect the groundwater, but it is also important that we pass on our knowledge so that others gain an understanding of how they can help protect our drinking water. That is why we invited local schools to our Plant a Tree event in May 2021. 200 school students in years K-6 from Randers made a contribution to cleaner drinking water in the local area when they were given the opportunity to plant trees in Randers Sønderskov, south of Randers, above the groundwater at Vilstrup Vandværk.

In addition to planting trees, the students were given the chance to taste two kinds of groundwater, and to ‘score a global goal’, to give focus to global goal #6 – clean water and sanitation.

The event was arranged in collaboration with Skovdyrkerne, an organisation that helps ensure our forests meet requirements for diversity and growing conditions. In this way, we ensure that the forest best protects the groundwater, and also becomes a recreational area for locals.

Plant a Tree event

Water Day

Verdo has partnered with Vandmiljø Randers and Randers Naturcenter for many years to mark Water Day – the United Nations’ international theme day focusing on water that takes place every year on 22 March. We have done this by inviting year 3 students from primary schools in Randers Municipality to Gudenåen, to learn more about water. The event has been fully booked in the past, with more than 400 students, who have had an instructive day on how we protect our drinking water, and how they can contribute in the future.

However, COVID-19 has meant that the event had to be cancelled in both 2020 and 2021. Instead, we chose to develop a digital platform together with our local partners, so that students still had the opportunity to mark Water Day through online teaching material (Vandløbet).

Vandløbet is an example of local collaboration, where we give students and schools something back by sharing our expert knowledge. With a digital solution, we not only help to future-proof the learning, we also help to spread knowledge beyond the municipality.

District heating under the motorway

Verdo is constantly working to expand the district heating network, and in 2019 we expanded west of the E45 motorway when we established district heating pipes in Over Hornbæk, where there are existing homes and new allotments.

We started converting several homes from gas to district heating in the area in 2021, and the work will continue in the coming year, as we also explore opportunities in other locations in and around Randers.

We drilled under the E45 motorway again in 2021. This time at the industrial district southwest of Randers. The project involved doing directional drilling under the motorway and pulling district heating pipes under the road. The section under the highway was 108 metres long, and we drilled at depths of up to eight metres.

The entire pipeline for the project covered 650 metres from Verdo’s peak load plant, to the area west of the motorway.

We opened a new heating plant in Studsgård, south of Herning, in summer 2021. The village had been left without a source of heating when the previous agreement to take off surplus heat from a local business expired. We therefore invested in a new green energy plant that future-proofs the area, with district heating for all village residents. There has been constructive dialogue with the Studsgård Citizens’ Association throughout the process. A recreation area has been established on the site of the heating plant for citizens to use, and vegetation has been planted to conceal the heating plant.

The new climate-friendly district heating production was launched on 1 July 2021.

The 1.1 MW heat pump with four air coolers primarily produces district heating using cheap surplus electricity.

The official opening was marked on 25 August, when many residents turned up for a tour of the heat pump plant and an explanation of how the advanced equipment works. After this, the hot dog stand operated by Kelds Pølser & Udlejning was kept busy serving hot dogs, Cocio chocolate milk, soft drinks and coffee over the counter to those who came.

New heating plant established in Studsgård

Local development is essential in our social contract. We achieve this, for example, when we share knowledge and do new development with a wide range of players. That is why Verdo participated in the 2021 TBMI (Technological Business Model Innovation) Challenge, where we were assigned a case together with a group of talented students from Aarhus University’s Department of Business Development and Technology, located in Herning.

As part of the project, the students reviewed how Verdo inspects the street lights in Herning Municipality. The aim was to optimise the current system and find a smarter, better and greener solution.

The project spawned two suggestions: The first was an Internet of Things (IoT) unit to monitor the operational status of the street lighting and automatically report faults. The second involved placing QR codes on street light poles, which residents can scan if they notice a fault.

The students thus gave us some exciting and very concrete ideas on how to think more innovatively about how we inspect street lights in the future. Given our good experience from the productive collaboration, this will not be the last time Verdo takes part in a case at the TBMI Challenge.

TBMI Challenge resulted in smart solutions

Autumn 2021: DOLL Living Lab, during a visit by the then Minister for Transport Benny Engelbrecht, Regional Council President Lars Gaardhøj and Albertslund Mayor Steen Christiansen, who installed the test centre’s first traffic signal. Social contract – SOCIETY

Large test centre opens its doors

Denmark’s first outdoor test area for smart traffic signals – DOLL Living Lab – was officially opened in autumn 2021 in Hersted Industripark in Albertslund. The aim of DOLL Living Lab is to improve public transport by finding smart new solutions to urban traffic challenges, including those in Copenhagen. In the future, buses need to be able to travel through cities faster, for the benefit of the climate and residents.

Verdo is one of the players behind the test centre, which has come into being through a public-private partnership. The result is Europe’s largest Living Lab for developing the LED lighting and Smart City solutions of the future. The vision is for DOLL to be the world’s leading innovation hub for developing, testing and demonstrating intelligent lighting in the field.

Demolition of the coal crane at the Port of Randers

The coal crane came to Randers at a time when lots of coal was being used, and was effective for handling the coal.

The crane was later taken out of service due to new mobile crane types which are more efficient and flexible and due to a greater focus on biomass, which is the focus of operations at the Port of Randers today.

Verdo had a desire that others be able to enjoy the crane’s resources. We therefore decided to remove the crane in order to dismantle it and recover about 400 tonnes of steel. After a process involving professional advisors, it was agreed that explosives should be used to tip the crane over. Long and thorough preparations followed prior to the operation, so that the explosion could take place in the most effective, safe and eco-friendly manner possible.

All liquids were carefully drained from the machine. The crane was weakened in strategic locations, and strengthened in others, to ensure it would fall on the desired area. A large area was covered with wood chips to act as a cushion and reduce noise etc. from the crane’s fall. During the period before, during and after the explosion, the north harbour and pier were completely closed, and there were guards at the normal entrances. The north harbour basin was also placed off limits until the blast had occurred.

After the crane was tipped over, the structure was carefully cut into smaller pieces and driven away for recycling. The steel is recycled by smelting to make practically everything that steel is used in.

The entire operation – from preparation for the explosion until the last container filled with steel was driven from the harbour – took about two months.