The VELUX Group contributes greatly to race theme of sustainability

The VELUX Group is very pleased with the commitment of promoting sustainability during the next VELUX 5 OCEANS 2010-11.

As title sponsor of the race, the VELUX Group plays a key role in the execution of the theme, especially in the host ports of the race around the world.

The race launches the sustainability agenda under the concept of Taking on the Elements. This concept brings together all the key stakeholders in the race under the umbrella of the shared value of sustainability, providing a basis of understanding and a platform for activities and communications.

At the start of the race in October 2010, the three parties of the host port, the French city of La Rochelle, race organiser Clipper Ventures and the VELUX Group will all contribute with initiatives to support the theme. To this end, the VELUX Group will showcase a unique carbon-neutral building, VELUX House, and celebrate the winners of the International VELUX Award for Students of Architecture.

"As a major, global sporting event, we think it is natural for VELUX 5 OCEANS to be committed to fighting climate change. Just like the VELUX Group, the race supports sustainable development in many specific ways. In our company we work with sustainable building principles to inspire the future of modern living and integrate daylight as a natural renewable source of energy through the roof to make houses carbon-neutral," says Michael K. Rasmussen, VELUX Group Director of Branding & Marketing.

Currently, VELUX House is located at the COP15 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, where it is serving as the official exit building for all delegates and other visitors to the conference. VELUX House will give them an opportunity to see a carbon-neutral building and learn how older apartment buildings can be renovated by utilising daylight and natural ventilation and at the same time minimise the use of resources – and thereby CO2 emis-sions.

VELUX House is a holistic and experimental approach to future housing and sustainable liv-ing. It was built to achieve the best possible balance between energy efficiency, indoor cli-mate and the environment – for the benefit of the climate, the economy and the health of human beings. VELUX House is based on prefabricated modules and therefore offers afford-able rooftop housing.

"We look forward also to presenting this innovative building under the banner of Taking on the Elements. VELUX House challenges traditions in the building industry and gives a vision-ary yet very practical answer to the reduction of buildings' climate impact. Buildings repre-sent 40% of the energy consumption in the EU today but this experiment shows that with the components already available it is possible to change this significantly," comments Mi-chael K. Rasmussen.

n La Rochelle, VELUX will also announce and celebrate the winners of the International VELUX Award 2010 for Students of Architecture. The overall theme of the award is Light of Tomorrow, through which it seeks to challenge the future of daylight in the built environ-ment with an open-minded and experimental approach. So the award seeks to push back the boundaries of daylight in architecture with aesthetics, functionality, sustainability, and the interaction between buildings and the environment.

The award recently opened for registration

"Our ambition is to promote daylight, fresh air and quality of life in buildings. We present the International VELUX Award every second year to encourage students all over the world to explore the themes of sunlight and daylight in their widest sense and to propose new ideas for future sustainable architecture," says Michael K. Rasmussen.

The VELUX Group is also committed to lowering its direct impact on the climate through a much more ambitious climate strategy than similar international companies have adopted. The target is to reduce the Group's global CO2 load by 20% by 2012 and 50% by 2020, and the VELUX Group strongly backs the efforts to reach an ambitious climate agreement at COP15 with broad-reaching support.

About VELUX
VELUX creates better living environments with daylight and fresh air through the roof. Our product programme contains a wide range of roof windows and skylights, along with solu-tions for flat roofs. In addition, VELUX offers many types of decoration and sun screening, roller shutters, installation products, products for remote control and thermal solar panels for installation in roofs. VELUX, which has manufacturing companies in 11 countries and sales companies in just under 40 countries, is one of the strongest brands in the global building materials sector and its products are sold in most parts of the world. The VELUX Group has about 10,000 employees and is owned by VKR Holding A/S. VKR Holding A/S is a limited company wholly owned by foundations and family. For more details, visit www.velux.com