The supplier award certificate was presented by Marc de Jong, CEO of LM Wind Power to Malcolm Forsyth, director, global strategy for Scott Bader, who has overall strategic partnership responsibility for LM Wind Power. LM Wind Power is a long standing key global customer, whose factories use Scott Bader gelcoat and structural adhesive in the production of FRP wind turbine blades around the world.
After the presentation, Forsyth commented: “Scott Bader is absolutely delighted to receive this recognition of our innovative capabilities from a major customer like LM Wind Power. We dedicate more than 10% of our global workforce to research and development, and see innovation and bringing new advanced technology products to market as a key corporate strength and competitive differentiator. The Scott Bader R&D team rose to the challenge set by LM Wind Power to rapidly develop a zero styrene gelcoat for blade manufacture and did a fantastic job in developing this new breakthrough product in a short period of time"
This latest in-house R&D innovation from Scott Bader was in response to LM Wind Power’s HSE and sustainability objectives, set with the full support and participation of senior management within LM Wind Power.
Marc van Heeringen, supply chain leader for chemicals at LM Wind Power explained: “In LM Wind Power, we have an internal Global HSE & Sustainability Council chaired by our CEO. A key sustainable development goal agreed by the council is to eliminate styrene from all LM Wind Power plants in a staged process over the coming years. Now that Scott Bader has successfully developed a new zero styrene gelcoat that also meets all quality criteria for our wind turbine blades, we are a big step closer to achieving this sustainability goal in all our FRP production facilities, and have market leading HSE performance wherever we operate in the world.”
Over the coming years, LM Wind Power plans to switch all gelcoated blade parts moulded around the world to the new zero styrene gelcoat in a managed change process with its end customers.