![\"Mads](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/orsted3.jpg\")
Mads Nipper<\/p>\nYou might not think of Denmark as an oil state in the mould of Qatar or Venezuela. But the Scandinavian nation we know and admire today \u2013 with its free education and healthcare, and enviable work-life balance \u2013 was to a large extent financed by the oil and gas extracted from the North Sea by Maersk and managed by Dansk Olie og Naturgas (known by the unfortunate acronym Dong) during the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n
Today, Denmark enjoys a global reputation as an environmental frontrunner, aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. It\u2019s also home to the world\u2019s leading offshore wind-power company, \u00d8rsted. But Dong and \u00d8rsted are actually one and the same \u2013 an indication of just how much Denmark\u2019s energy policies have changed over the past 30 years. The name switch happened in 2017, inspired by Hans Christian \u00d8rsted, a Danish scientist who first discovered the connection between electricity and magnetism. It marked a transformation as one of Europe\u2019s most carbon- intensive energy firms became one of the greenest. This year it came second in business magazine Corporate Knights\u2018 global sustainable companies list.<\/p>\n
Mads Nipper<\/p>\n
When Monocle catches up with \u00d8rsted\u2019s CEO, Mads Nipper, he\u2019s in the firm\u2019s vast, glassy Copenhagen office in the suburb of Gentofte, which he has worked from since taking the helm in January 2021. His predecessor, Henrik Poulsen, oversaw a 10-year metamorphosis of the utility business. \u201cWhat\u2019s been most impressive is the pace that this company moves at,\u201d says Nipper. \u201cIt has been quite mind-blowing how fast we are passing strategic milestones. We announced that we wanted to secure three gigawatts of offshore capacity in a year \u2013 and we did it in six months. We\u2019re entering into offshore floating wind farms and we\u2019ve commissioned our first combined solar and storage project. So many things are happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nipper, who previously worked at Lego and water-pump company Grundfos, admits that when he took up his current position, he had to ask one of his 6,600 new colleagues to explain the basics of electromagnetism. \u201cBut that gives you an incredible humility as a CEO,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u00d8rsted is in the unusual position of being a listed company that is 50.1 per cent state-owned. But might that be the worst of both worlds, ensuring both political meddling and stakeholder pressure? \u201cBeing state-owned gives us a full credit rating \u2013 and the cheaper capital that brings is important,\u201d says Nipper. \u201cThe Danish state is actually very good at letting us run on market terms. It thinks very long-term. I see it is an obligation to get people to see that there is no trade-off between sustainability and commercial enterprise.\u201d However, \u00d8rsted is likely to face tougher competition in the future. Under pressure to go green, oil giants such as Total, Shell and BP are now competing for tenders to develop the seabeds in numerous territories for their own offshore wind farms. Industry insiders believe that \u00d8rsted will struggle to match Big Oil\u2019s bottomless wallets as seabed options are already being awarded at what are widely considered to be inflated prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still want to be the undisputed leader in offshore,\u201d says a bullish Nipper. \u201cAnd our target of 50 gigawatts by 2030 is already fully funded.\u201d He points out that<\/p>\n
![\"Mads](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/orsted1.jpg\")
\u00d8rsted\u2019s CEO is tasked with defining the firm\u2019s approach to sustainability<\/p>\n
\u00d8rsted\u2019s share of the market might fall in the coming years but the market itself is predicted to grow seven times by the turn of the decade, which means that the company can continue to grow in absolute terms. He cites recent moves by the business into Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam, as well as continuing growth in the US as positive signs for future global expansion. In terms of technology, \u00d8rsted is betting on floating wind farms as the next major offshore development: turbines are still growing in scale and output, while the transmission and storage of the energy they generate are becoming more effective.<\/p>\n
But some factors are beyond even a CEO\u2019s control. Since Nipper took charge, \u00d8rsted has been buffeted (or rather, not buffeted) by unusually low winds in the first half of 2021, resulting in DKK1.7bn (\u20ac229m) of lost revenue. Combined with warranty claims on malfunctioning offshore cables, it resulted in the company\u2019s share price dropping by about a quarter over the past year. But that might not be such a troubling indicator. \u201cMarket sentiment has overpriced a lot of green shares, including \u00d8rsted\u2019s,\u201d says Steen Vallentin, academic director of the Sustainability Centre at the Copenhagen Business School. \u201cBut life is definitely going to get more difficult, with the oil companies bidding for offshore tenders.\u201d<\/p>\n
The son of a shipbuilder, 56-year-old Nipper grew up in Skagen, the north Jutland town that\u2019s popular with Copenhageners during the summer. In winter it\u2019s a windswept place of fishermen known for straight-talking and driving a hard bargain \u2013 useful qualities for a CEO. Today, Nipper is one of a handful of Danish business leaders with a public profile. He\u2019s a bit of a rockstar, according to those who follow the corporate world here. And yet he remains \u201ca safe choice after the transformation under Poulsen,\u201d according to Vallentin. Indeed, Nipper fits the image of a conservative Danish corporate leader, which will no doubt help as he continues to try to persuade his fellow countrymen and women to renounce their carbon-emitting habits.<\/p>\n
![\"View](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/anholt_top_turbine_resize.jpg\")
There is tough competition for offshore development<\/p>\n
![\"Large](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/anholt_building_turbines_resize.jpg\")
Floating wind farms<\/p>\n
As wealthy consumers with a penchant for nice cars and foreign travel \u2013 not to mention a high-emitting agriculture sector \u2013 the Danes have, per capita, one of the world\u2019s highest carbon footprints. The country remains one of the EU\u2019s largest oil producers, although it has pledged to stop fossil-fuel extraction by 2050. \u00d8rsted itself still generates a small proportion of energy (less than 10 per cent) by burning coal, which it will cease to do by 2023. But the day after monocle speaks to Nipper, the front page of Danish daily Politiken leads with allegations of suspect carbon-quota trading by the company. Might allegations of \u201cgreenwashing\u201d be justified? \u201cOverall, the company\u2019s transition to wind power has been amazing,\u201d says Claus Ekman, director of Green Transition Denmark, an NGO. \u201cBut there are other things in its portfolio that I am less happy about. It still has plants running on biomass, for instance, which we don\u2019t believe is fully sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00d8rsted has pledged that all new projects will have a net-positive biodiversity impact by 2030. By then it will have installed 30gw in offshore capacity. To put that into context, it has currently installed 7.6gw, while Total is aiming for nearly 100gw\/h during the same time frame.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a nation we consume too much,\u201d says Nipper. \u201cSo we have an obligation to decarbonise faster than others.\u201d Danes seem willing to pay the price for this green transition: they bear the highest energy costs in the world, largely due to taxation. \u201cWe can afford it,\u201d he says. \u201cEspecially if the tax revenue is spent wisely on accelerating things for the future.\u201d It\u2019s easy to pay your fuel bills when you are on a CEO\u2019s salary, you might think, but Nipper\u2019s is capped at dkk15m (\u20ac2m), plus performance-related bonuses of up to 30 per cent; Vallentin points out that he could potentially earn double that in the private sector. But Nipper sees his mission at \u00d8rsted as long-term. \u201cPut it this way, I do not plan to have another full-time job before I retire,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u00d8rsted in numbers:<\/p>\n
Revenue (2020): DKK52.6bn (\u20ac7bn)
Operating profit (2020): DKK18bn (\u20ac2.4bn)
Market value: DKK369bn (\u20ac50bn)
Employees: 3,900 (Denmark); 6,600 (globally)
Total offshore wind turbines globally: 1,500 plus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You might not think of Denmark as an oil state in the mould of Qatar or Venezuela. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[285],"tags":[37765,913,26,907,59693,20618,59694,15983,380,287,928,2140,819],"class_list":["post-120553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orsted","tag-carbon-neutrality","tag-climate-change","tag-denmark","tag-energy-policy","tag-energy-transformation","tag-green-transition","tag-mads-nipper","tag-north-sea-oil","tag-offshore-wind","tag-orsted","tag-renewable-energy","tag-sustainability","tag-wind-power"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116846863843502206","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}