🍃 The hidden problem with clean energy no one talks about.

For years, wind power was hailed as a clean energy hero.

But behind the scenes, there was a secret: turbine blades had no second life.

They were massive. Durable. Notoriously hard to recycle.

And most ended up in landfills.

The reality is clean energy can’t just be about the start of life.

It has to be about the end too.

Now, companies like Veolia and GE Renewable Energy have found a solution for all the blades out there not designed for reuse.

Here’s how it works:

• Blades, sometimes weighing up to 7 tons, are cut into 20-foot sections.

• They’re shredded into football-sized chunks.

• A second shredder grinds them even finer.

• The material goes straight to cement factories.

• In cement kilns, the blades replace coal, silica, and limestone as fuel.

The results, according to Quantis U.S., are powerful:

→ 27% lower CO₂ emissions.
→ 13% less water use.
→ Nearly 5 tons of coal avoided per blade.

Image credit: Pexels/Pixabay

Meanwhile, a consortium of the industry and universities here in Denmark has found a way to design the blades so they can in fact be recycled at end of life - and of course they still perform as they should.

This is what future-focused sustainability looks like:

• Designing for the full lifecycle, not just the beginning.

• Solving problems before they pile up.

• Turning waste into a resource.

And the same principle applies to business.

Leaders who think only about the launch phase only miss the bigger picture.

The real transformation happens when you design with the end in mind.

That’s where sustainability stops being a cost, and starts becoming a competitive advantage.

Inside Impact Circle, I help senior leaders reframe challenges like this to build roadmaps where impact fuels profit, and where every stage of the lifecycle creates value.

👉 If you’re ready to rethink your own end-of-life challenges, hit reply with ‘IMPACT’ and let’s map out your next step.

P.S. If you’d rather dive straight in, you can also click here to book a call to get it in the diary.

Best,
Jasper