Superior Essex recently announced it received the International Living Future Institute’s (ILFI) Living Product Challenge (LPC) certification—declaring it’s the first LPC certification ever awarded to a cable manufacturer. Superior Essex says the certification is “in keeping with its long-running commitments to sustainability and product transparency.
“Currently, Superior Essex is the only cable manufacturer, and one of just nine products total, to achieve this rigorous and industry-leading certification,” the company added.
The company’s Category 6+ Low Smoke Halogen Free (LSHF) achieved the Living Product certification, the company said. Superior Essex said with this certification, it can “contribute to our customers’ success in achieving Living Building Challenge (LBC) and WELL building standard projects, as it is the only certified Red List Free cable product on the market. In the near future, LPC certifications will be reviewed to contribute to LEED as well.”
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The International WELL Building Institute is a public-benefit corporation that describes its mission as “to improve human health and well-being in buildings and communities across the world through its WELL Building Standard.
The ILFI’s Red List “contains the worst in class materials prevalent in the building industry,” the institute says. “The commonly used chemicals on the Red List are polluting the environment, bio-accumulating up the food chain until they reach toxic concentrations, and harming construction and factory workers.”
The ILFI is a non-governmental organization that is “committed to catalyzing a global transformation toward true sustainability,” Superior Essex said when announcing the certification. “The Institute seeks partnerships with leaders in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors in pursuit of a future that is socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative.”
The ILFI explained, “The Living Product Challenge is an attempt to dramatically raise the bar from a paradigm where simply doing less harm is laudable, to one in which we seek to be restorative—giving more than we take.”
Superior Essex characterized the Living Product Challenge certification as being “defined by some of the most advanced criteria for the creation of products. In essence, the standard proposes to make product design and production an opportunity to positively impact human and ecological communities worldwide.”
The company added that Living Products are healthy and free of toxins; are manufactured in a socially responsible manner that is respectful of worker rights; are net positive and benefit both people and the environment.
Superior Essex’s vice president for applications engineering and quality, Eric Perry, commented, “We are proud of how sustainability has been integrated into our company’s core values. Achieving the rigorous Living Product Challenge certification is a display of how far we’ve come. With products that connect the world, we are focused on creating an overall net positive impact on the environment and humans. We look forward to supporting our customers’ needs to meet their green-building project goals by providing Red List Free cable to the building environment.”