GWO Forum ’25: Reflecting on Safety & Training Forum and Awards

Over two energizing days in Madrid, the GWO Safety & Training Forum and Awards 2025 brought together more than 150 training providers, policymakers, and safety professionals from across the global wind and solar industries.

Now firmly established as a cornerstone event for the renewable energy community, the Forum provided a powerful platform for collaboration, learning, and inspiration — a space where ideas, experience, and innovation met to strengthen a shared mission of building a safer and more skilled energy workforce for the future.

Across Day 1, we turned our focus to the people, systems, and partnerships that are shaping the future of our industry and how we can collectively drive progress through collaboration, innovation, and shared commitment to safety.

Sessions on Workforce Development: Macrolevel Solutions and Educational Perspectives brought together experts from government, industry, and education to discuss how stronger alignment between policy and practice can accelerate talent development and meet the demands of a rapidly growing renewable sector.

“What stands out is the potential in this industry to develop talent at scale, supporting training and education at all levels to provide sufficient development pathways globally.”
— Daniela Santopolo, Policy Officer, European Commission

Attendees also gained a look behind the scenes into How GWO Standards Are Shaped and Delivered, highlighting the collaborative process that ensures training standards remain relevant, consistent, and effective worldwide.

The day closed with a thought-provoking panel, Striking the Balance Between Quality Assurance & Innovation, exploring how maintaining rigorous quality standards can go hand in hand with creativity and progress in learning design.

Celebrating excellence

The evening saw the community come together for the GWO Safety & Training Awards 2025, celebrating exceptional achievements across regions and disciplines. The awards honoured the dedication, expertise, and innovation of training teams, instructors, and rising stars whose work continues to elevate global safety and skills standards.

You can see the full list of GWO Safety & Training Awards 2025 winners here.

On Day 2 we turned our focus to new projects and explored how innovation and cross-sector collaboration can accelerate the transition to a safer, more sustainable energy future.

Our first session, Going into Solar, introduced GWO’s expansion into the solar sector — in partnership with Global Solar Council — marked a move towards a unified, cross-sector safety and training standards approach. The discussion reflected both ambition and optimism for a more integrated renewable workforce and highlighted the shared commitment to raising global standards across all areas of clean energy.

At the same time, Measuring What Matters: Rethinking Participant Assessments challenged participants to explore new ways of evaluating learning outcomes, with an emphasis on translating training into real-world safety performance and behaviour.

The Forum concluded with reflections from Jakob Lau Holst, Sebastian von Lueders, and Huawen Xie, reinforcing the importance of shared learning, collaboration, and innovation across the GWO community.

“The range and depth of this year’s Forum discussions have been inspiring to observe.”
— John Barrie, Global Head of Training, Vestas

A shared sense of progress

As the Forum drew to a close, the energy in the room reflected a collective sense of achievement and optimism. Across two days of dialogue, debate, and discovery, participants reaffirmed a shared belief — that progress toward a safer, more sustainable renewable energy workforce is driven by global collaboration, continuous learning, and an unwavering commitment to excellence.

“The continuity from previous years was evident, with more and more thought leaders contributing their perspectives to our panel discussions and workshops.”
— Jakob Lau Holst, CEO, GWO

GWO extends a huge thanks to every speaker, facilitator, and participant who contributed to this year’s Forum. Your insight, energy, and passion continue to shape the future of safety and training across wind and solar energy.

We look forward to building on the momentum, partnerships, and inspiration forged in Madrid — and to welcoming you to next year’s event in Paris.

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