Danish Chamber Revives Just as Copenhagen Flight Arrives

When Jesper Sorenson visited Atlanta for a ribbon-cutting in March, the Danish ambassador had some explaining to do.

Since his government axed its trade commission in Atlanta, the country’s profile had slipped, members of the Danish business community told him in no uncertain terms during a roundtable at the Metro Atlanta Chamber.

Top executives from Danish companies in Georgia, some 60 firms employing more than 4,000 people, wondered aloud whether an effort to revive a local chamber would receive the ambassador’s — and the government’s — blessing.

“The ‘official Denmark’ cannot be present in all of the 50 states. But what is very important to me is that when we have a physical presence, be that in Chicago, Boston, Washington or New York, we still work and assist companies regardless of where they are positioned in all 50 states,” Mr. Sorenson told Global Atlanta in an interview at the time.

When he returned in mid-June to inaugurate a new SAS Scandinavian Airlines flight from Copenhagen to Atlanta, Mr. Sorenson found a newly organized and reinvigorated Danish business community.

The chamber in June named a new board of directors, with some pandemic-era holdouts stepping down and others coming in to help seize a moment that Mr. Jesperson insists is unique in the bilateral relationship.

With not quite 6 million people, Denmark is a hotbed for innovation in energy, sustainability and urban design, and it’s aiming to showcase that expertise around the world.

“I’m very thankful for what they’re doing to re-energize that very important piece of work,” he said of the local Danish business community.

The U.S. is now the top export destination for Danish companies, Mr. Sorenson said, trailing only Germany as the country’s largest trading partner.

Much of that has to do with Danish exports of climate-focused solutions and clean-energy technologies as the country moves toward ambitious goals for CO2 emission reductions.

In Denmark, he said, there are no debates on whether climate change is real, even on the political side.

“Everybody accepts the fact that this is happening and we need to mitigate and to combat climate change. So the discussion is more about how fast you move and what are the instruments, the level of ambition,” he said.

Denmark started moving toward becoming energy self-sufficient in the 1970s, when the oil crisis hit the country hard. Wind turbines became a fixture in Danish harbors and companies continued to innovate.

The U.S. hasn’t quite reached consensus, but the Biden administration has enacted aggressive climate plans through the Inflation Reduction Act. Danish companies are still trying to figure out the finer points of how this will apply to their U.S. investments, Mr. Sorenson said.

He added that the U.S. focus on unilaterally creating an industry out of thin air has the potential to lock out some of its closest partners that have longstanding expertise in certain areas.

“That makes it much much more expensive for the American consumer, instead of just getting those products from your closest partners, so that seems not very sensible,” he said. “I think that this should be allowed to benefit both for the U.S consumer, the U.S. worker, but also your allies.”

Another concern he’s hearing from Danish companies investing in places like Georgia is around the ability to find skilled workers.

“Increasingly I hear that Danish companies are also beginning to ask where is the manpower, with unemployment rate at just below 4 percent in some states, and I think Georgia is one of them,” he said. “You cannot find labor in certain industries, so that’s also pushing up salaries and it’s becoming more expensive to hire.”

For Peter Vang Jensen, the flight and the new chamber represent a full-circle moment returning to advocacy for his native country.

The new president of the Danish-American Chamber of Commerce Georgia, Mr. Jensen was trade commissioner of Denmark in Atlanta in the early 1980s, when there was a similar push for a flight that fell flat.

“I accompanied a delegation of Atlanta business titans: then honorary consul of Denmark, architect and developer Mr. John Portman; then honorary consul of Sweden, businessman Holcombe T. Green Jr; Beers Construction Co. CEO Lawrence Gellerstedt Jr.; and Carol Martel, then vice president of Metro Atlanta Chamber,” Mr. Jensen told Global Atlanta in an email.

It was a long shot at the time. Atlanta only had a few international routes, including the Sabena flight from Brussels that had started a couple of years before.

“SAS executives listened politely to our promotion — then quickly forgot it. Until now, 43 years later,” Mr. Jensen said.

He added that the chamber is planning a full slate of programs this year with the new board members — some Danish, some American, from both Georgia and Florida.

For the newly revived chamber, the flight couldn’t have come at a better time.

“This is a very vibrant state, economically speaking,” Mr. Sorenson said. “I think the fact that the Scandinavian Airlines is opening up a direct flight to Copenhagen just reinforces that point.”