Environment

Climate Change & Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The management of climate change risks and opportunities across Belden’s operations and supply chain is a top priority for the Company. We strive to mitigate negative contributions to climate change. This includes reducing GHG emissions associated with our operations, managing climate change risks to our business, and designing our products and services to support a low carbon economy. We have committed to these goals internally and as a direct partner with some of our customers.

Belden measures energy use at all Belden locations with a footprint of 15000 ft2 or greater (which includes our manufacturing and distribution facilities and large offices) and calculates Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from these operations annually. 

Goal: By 2025, reduce global scope 1 and scope 2 total combined emissions by 25% (FY19 baseline).*

*for locations greater than 15,000 ft2

Energy Use & Management

At Belden, we seek to improve energy efficiency efforts across our businesses and to increase our local use of green energy. Both of these efforts directly improve our GHG Emissions reduction goal.

We’ve already improved our energy use efficiency with the installation of LED lighting, motion-controlled lighting systems, and low-energy consumption air compressors at many of our locations and we continue to look for opportunities to reduce our consumption through on-site energy use audits. We have invested in green energy projects both locally (like our roof-top solar project at our Suzhou, China plant) and through regional and global green energy projects that are funded through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) for green energy.

Goal: Increase the of use of electricity generated from site specific renewable sources from 2019 levels at our manufacturing and distribution locations.

Goal: By 2025, increase total global electricity use efficiency from 2019 levels at manufacturing and distribution locations.

Environmental Management

At Belden, we encourage minimization of waste generation at the source (including hazardous wastes) and require recycling/reusing waste versus disposal when possible for the waste we do generate. We seek to minimize our direct environmental impacts by reducing the amount of waste that is landfilled and by encouraging water conservation at our locations. 

Hazardous Waste

Belden Corporate EHS standards mandate proper handling and storage of hazardous waste prior to recycling, reuse or disposal. Hazardous waste management is audited on a regular basis at Belden manufacturing and distribution locations.

We encourage minimization of hazardous waste generation at the source and recycling or reuse of any generated Hazardous Waste. Over time, we've moved from solvent-based printing to laser printing at cable manufacturing sites significantly reducing generation of solvent-based hazardous wastes. Our remaining solvent based waste is used for energy generation off-site or is recycled.

Recycling

Several waste streams including scrap metals, wire and cable, plastics, cardboard, and paper have recycling systems established at Belden facilities with the intent of avoiding landfill disposal of these recyclable waste streams. Data and information on our recycling efforts is collected for our manufacturing and distribution sites and reviewed annually.

Goal: By 2025, achieve at least 90% of waste by weight diverted from landfill for manufacturing and distribution locations. 

Water Use

Belden manages water use at its facilities to reduce environmental impacts and cost, including re-using process water when possible. Our corporate standards encourage water conservation practices and we review these practices as part of our corporate audit program. Water use is an enterprise-wide metric we track to measure our progress toward water conservation.

EHS Management Systems

Our global Corporate Environmental Health and Safety Management system (EHSMS) is based on the ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 International Standards and was implemented in 2009 at all Belden manufacturing and distribution locations. The Belden EHSMS provides a structure for implementing proactive and sustainable business practices to drive continuous improvement while meeting our environmental, health and safety management objectives. 

Additionally, some of our global locations are third-party certified to the ISO 14001, ISO 45001, and ISO 50001 standards and current certificates are available upon request.  

Raw Materials

We define this topic as the management and transparency of raw materials used in production and the impacts associated with sourcing and extraction. We source raw materials sustainably and ethically across Belden’s global supply chain and are transparent about these efforts.

Belden is committed to source raw materials sustainably across our global supply chain and production platforms, with full transparency and in accordance with established ISO standards.

Our R&D team seeks to identify and create singular world-wide standards for environmentally preferable materials used in the production and packaging of our products and work with our suppliers for compliance to these standards. We commit to invest in continual improvement of renewable or recyclable component end of life material streams.

Our procurement and supply chain teams share Belden’s enthusiasm and sustainability goals with our global suppliers and encourage them to support Belden’s environmental management program. Our strategic suppliers and logistical partners are actively engaged in the efforts of ISO 14001 reporting and carbon footprints reduction for the materials or services they provide to Belden.

Belden is committed to designing products that have minimal contaminants and that comply with all environmental laws in the markets where we sell our products, including all applicable International product environmental regulations. We work with customers and suppliers to ensure compliance with these requirements including, LEED, RoHS, China RoHS and REACH.

Goal: By 2025, increase the use of renewable or recyclable materials in packaging by 20% (FY21 baseline).

For a full list of all relevant certificates and declarations, please contact Belden Customer Service.