From R&D to Recycling, Here's How You Create a Sustainable Cable

As our world continues to grow more environmentally conscious, you may be searching for more sustainable products. This demand is a good thing, for both us and the Earth, for cleaner products made in a cleaner manner benefit all of us. However, some companies and manufacturers just put a "sustainable" label on their old products and leave it at that. This is known as "greenwashing" - providing misleading or incorrect information about level at which the product is environmentally friendly. This isn't true sustainability. 

Becoming a truly sustainable manufacturer is neither that quick nor that easy. For years, Superior Essex has been a pioneer in sustainability in all aspects of their business, from the solutions they offer to how they manufacturer them. With over a decade of dedicated innovation to the sustainability of their manufacturing practices and cabling products, including earning the Zero Waste to Landfill certification, it's clear that they know what it takes to produce environmentally friendly products. You may be familiar with their commitment to sustainability, but how exactly do they create such sustainable solutions? 

After completing a rigorous Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of its Hoisington, Kansas, manufacturing plant and supply chain partners in 2004, Superior Essex took three key actions towards earning the true Zero Waste to Landfill certification:

• Developed innovative sustainable manufacturing practices. Prior to their sustainability initiatives, Superior Essex, like most companies, sent the majority of their plastic waste to landfills. Today, however, all of the plastic waste they produce is separated and repurposed, with much of it reprocessed into plastic pellets that are then blended with virgin plastic for new cable production or incorporated into non-cable products. They also recycle and reuse copper scrap and plastic spools. Another source of waste was the wooden reels Superior Essex uses to store and ship their cable and wire products. They began reusing or recycling their reels, further reducing their waste. With a "cable take-back" program, which takes old, outdated cable from a renovation project and recycles it for free, Superior Essex enables customers to participate in sustainability efforts as well. 
• Insisted on accountability in the supply chain. The Zero Waste initiative demands a high level of control over a company's supply chain to account for the waste created throughout their entire downstream process. To continue working towards a truly sustainable production process, Superior Essex needed to ensure that the companies they use to recycle scrap metals, wood, plastics and other materials were not simply landfilling that waste. When Superior Essex first attempted to earn the Zero Waste to Landfill certification in 2014, the evaluators determined that only 89% of the generated waste was being diverted from landfills... some of the downstream management organizations were landfilling the hard-to-dispose waste! That simply isn't acceptable. Earning the Zero Waste to Landfill certification requires working with and counting on the right partners to recycle all materials - not just the easy-to-dispose waste. Today, any company with whom Superior Essex works is required to undergo an extensive evaluation and vetting process. 
• Attained credibility through outside certification. It's important to ensure that the claims a company makes are verifiable and accurate and not simply another instance of greenwashing. Superior Essex chose to pursue outside certification with GreenCircle Certified, LCC verify and the Zero Waste to Landfill certification. Attaining these outside certifications gives customers assurance that Superior Essex is truly committed to sustainability, as well as diligent and transparent in their waste reduction efforts.

Going further than the manufacturing process, Superior Essex cables are themselves sustainable. Through years of R&D at their Product Development Center (PDC), Superior Essex has created over 55 families of sustainable cable products, including the award-winning Cat 6+ Low-Smoke Halogen-Free (LSHF) cable. Those cable families come with transparent documentation, including Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Health Product Declarations (HPDs), Declare Labels and Red List Free certifications, so you can easily see how sustainable these products are. 

Superior Essex is dedicated to sharing all of this information publicly. There truly isn't any greenwashing here, and they have the documentation and certifications to prove it. From research and development to product testing, manufacturing and
certification to shipping, installation and even end-of-life recycling, Superior Essex has sustainable cable
figured out.

Contact your local Accu-Tech representative or click the above button to learn more about Superior Essex.