Corporate Social Responsibility
We believe that the technology that interconnects the world should also respect it.
President Brad R. Johnson on Our Environmental and Sustainability Leadership
As one of the world’s leading manufacturers of communications cable, Superior Essex products serve as the backbone of numerous systems that enable our connected world. And for the 90 years that we have been in business, we have witnessed – and created – a massive evolution in the communications technologies we support, as well as their impact on the environment.
Recognizing that our products have global effects, we began our sustainability program back in 2008 at our manufacturing facility in Hoisington, Kansas. It was then and there that plant personnel watched the waste being sent to landfill and truly considered the negative side effects it could have on our environment. To repair this, our teams then set out on what became an eight-year journey of working diligently and tirelessly to achieve the rare feat of earning third-party certification as a Zero Waste to Landfill facility in 2015 – and then maintained it for five years straight and counting.
From their inspiring leadership, our entire company has since shifted focus to design and manufacture the most sustainable communications cable products available in the marketplace. We now proudly feature Environmental Product Declarations, Health Product Declarations, Red List Free certifications, Life Cycle Assessments and Embodied Carbon Analyses on over 55 families of our communications cable products. And as a result of our collective efforts, we have attained a gold level rating in our sustainability assessment by the Telecommunications Industry Association, the highest level a company can achieve.
We do all this industry-leading work because we know that true sustainability is more than a just marketing label gained through acronyms. For us, sustainability is a responsibility – a way for us to make a real impact in the communities and industries we serve. Because we firmly believe that the technology that interconnects the world should also respect it.
Independent Sustainability Assessments
We’re proud to be a company that is leading by example, and we’re honored to have achieved a Gold Level rating within the Telecommunication Industry Association’s (TIA) Sustainability Assessment, the highest level a company can achieve. And as we look toward the future, we will continue to raise the bar on our sustainability efforts to make a positive impact on our environment, customers, stakeholders and employees.
Learn more about TIA’s Sustainability Assessor.
The TIA’s spider diagram below shows a company’s performance against best practices in each area of the model. This diagram should helps companies identify areas of strength and areas which may need developing in the future.
The TIA then compared our company’s scores to those of other best-in-class suppliers (as seen in the outer ring of the spider diagram above) and against their intermediate scoring levels, and the overall result that Superior Essex received was:
Gold: Excellent performance level. Congratulations! You are in a strong position to deliver bottom-line commercial benefits and competitive advantage to the organization and are approaching best practice.
Silver: Solid performance level, good breadth of performance, good understanding and capable of delivering financial and commercial benefits and competitive advantage.
Bronze: Entry level performance, some understanding, some demonstration of competence but not systematic or widespread across the organization.
Below Bronze: Not reaching entry level performance
Sustainability Leadership
We are true believers in teamwork, and we could not have achieved any of these efforts alone. That’s why we’re proud members of the Sustainable Leadership Forum organized by the Cymplx Group.
Superior Essex is a member of both the Atlanta and Philadelphia chapters, and we are elevating our corporate sustainability program through peer-to-peer learning. We are joined by numerous Fortune 50, 100 and 500 organizations like The Home Depot, Comcast, Cox Communications and Campbell’s Soup to collectively evolve our sustainability platforms for the greater good.
We are also proud to have our own Brad R. Johnson, President of Superior Essex Communications, serving as a corporate board member of the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI). He does so alongside an equally impressive cohort of corporate members to drive the organization’s strategy and direction, as well as continue their ambitious sustainability work across the ICT sector.