This Pride month, we sat down with Louise Haahr, COO, and Head of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Board to discuss what supporting and enabling diversity, equity, and inclusion across our global organisation means, and how this is integrated into PEAK Wind Group’s daily operations.
What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean to PEAK Wind Group?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are fundamental elements of a respectful and inclusive society. We want to be part of shaping a more diverse renewable energy industry by creating awareness around the issues and implementing initiatives toward solving these challenges.
PEAK Wind Group are dedicated to implementing our values of unity, integrity, passion, and expertise throughout the whole year. When we engage and stand for diversity and the freedom to express oneself, we learn and break barriers.
We want to provide equitable opportunities for all employees and help them thrive. This means that we hold ourselves accountable, always striving to foster a work environment and behaviour that is free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation to ensure that every employee feels safe, valued and included.
How do PEAK Wind Group incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion into organisational practices and daily work life?
Living by our values, unity and integrity, means, in practical terms, that we must facilitate a psychologically safe environment, where all team members can practice honest dialogues and bring forward diverse viewpoints. Within this setting, we are all able to contribute to our fullest potential.
One of the ways we strategically focus on DEI is through the PEAK Wind DEI Board and Work Group, which consists of a passionate and diverse group of employees across the business. Initiatives and actions are facilitated by the Board with input from the entire organisation and then implemented by everyone in the business. For example, we are developing tools and training for all employees on topics such as unconscious bias and privilege blindness awareness.
Our people managers play a significant role in walking the talk, so we empower them by providing additional awareness and leadership tools and training. We continuously review our policies and handbooks to ensure inclusive language. We are setting up measures to be able to track our progress.
We believe that diverse teams are stronger teams. A fundamental step towards creating diverse teams is ensuring a varied candidate pool. We live by our values throughout our recruitment practices, meaning that we consciously strive to attract a broad pool of candidates for every role. We look for talent within all industries and utilise transferable skillsets.
Learn more about working at PEAK Wind Group
Another one of our key activities throughout the year is celebrating Pride. Pride, as a celebration, raises awareness of the challenges still to be solved within diversity, equity and inclusion, and we focus on how we can work to address this issue within the renewable energy industry. For us, it is a celebration of change in the right direction, combined with a reminder that a year-round commitment is essential. At the same time, Pride celebrations facilitate meeting amazing new people, learning something new, and having fun together.
How will PEAK Wind Group keep supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the future?
PEAK Wind’s vision is to be a global leader in the renewable energy sector. This comes with a great responsibility to ensure that we incorporate the DEI movement and promote the advancement of DEI in the renewables industry.
We ask our organisation to trust the process and engage. We will continue discussing DEI openly and speak up when necessary. By committing resources to training and educating all employees, we advance our development and awareness journey.
We ask everyone to lead by example and take responsibility for their own DEI awareness, bias, and treatment of colleagues and clients. We encourage our team members to caringly challenge colleagues in situations that may have a tone of disparagement or exclusion. Empowering one another to take action is how we move forward in unity.
