Sustainable Products

SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainable Products

Innovative products and solutions

The Prysmian Group is committed to design products and solutions with lower environmental impact, that could reduce emission both in the production and use phase. This can be done through the use of different material, designs or to innovate the way products are used.

For example, P-Laser power transmission and distribution cables provide the best performances with a reduced environmental impact, using fully-recyclable materials and a “zero gas” process to reduce CO2 emissions. Compared to a traditional product, it shows a 34% reduction in CO2 content, when considering the raw materials and cable production, and the end of life.

Another example is the EX3 solution, a coating film derived from space application, which is able to reduce overhead lines emissions up to 25% by lowering the operating temperature of the cable. Our FlexRibbon fibre optic cable has the highest fibre density in the world as we pack more fibre into a smaller space. This makes installation quicker and cheaper, often avoiding replacing already installed ducts.

Alesea is our new IoT solution that offers near real-time information on cable drum location, drum use and the amount of cable available, keeping cable waste and scrap at a minimum. In our experience the solution increased by 10% the amount of drums returned and reduced cable leftover scrap by 25%

Our targets for a more sustainable product

Designing and manufacturing sustainable products is a way we can meet our own targets and do our part to protect the environment for all. Here are some of our goals that underpin our sustainable product efforts:

Analyse the carbon footprint of our products in order to measure the improvement in terms of environmental impact reconnected to redesign. By 2022 Prysmian managed to cover 92% of its products with a cradle-to-gate carbon footprint calculation, exceeding the target of 85% which was included in the company’s scorecard.

The group re-use approximately 50% of the drums used to deliver products to customers, in order to lower the environmental impact of products packaging.

Boosting a greener and digitalised world with sustainable networks

The telecom and energy industries play a key role in global goals to digitalise the economy while reducing carbon emissions.

As fibre optic technology provider we are working hard and progressing on energy efficiency issues.

Reaching energy costs reduction, being equipped for future iterations of mobile networking and having a wide portfolio of solutions is what differentiates us in the market. In order to enhance circularity and cut the carbon footprint of fibre optic, we are also introducing new production methods and eco-design solutions such as the deployment of sustainable materials and a reduction in raw materials used in the production process.

At the same time, we’re working on making supply chains more sustainable, that will benefit the customer, the European consumer and the world from and ecological point of view.

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Our Circularity Commitment

Sustainability means to reduce our impact on the natural capital, using less resources for our products and keep the materials as long as possible in the production loop. We aspire to be the industry leader in the usage of recycled materials and for the recyclability of our products. We are the first cable maker to have set quantifiable targets on recycled content, aiming to achieve 15%-16% of secondary content in the Copper and Polyethilene for jacketing purposes that we buy. In 2022, the value of the recycled input on these two materials has been 10%.

However, circularity also implies regenerating used material and reintroducing it in the value chain. This is true for our production waste, which in 2022 were recycled for more then 71%, and also for our cable products at their end of life. The 88% of our cable components are recyclable (2022 data), and we are working to increase this number even more through innovation as P-Laser.

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Our commitment to forestation

Prysmian supports UN Sustainable Development Goal 15 through in the value chain where it operates. Prysmian uses mainly wooden packaging to deliver its products to customers. The Group is committed to engage as much as possible with vendors that have a responsible approach toward forest preservation through careful selection of the partners which are delivering wooden products, mainly drums.

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Products’ End of Life: the Prysmian Group responsibility

The final phase of a product life cycle is called End Of Life (EOL): in this stage a product is no more able to fulfill the task/function for which it has been designed and therefore is going to be disposed.

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