Shaw Industries CEO Vance Bell poses for a portrait Friday, Aug. 14, 2015, at their headquarters in Dalton, Ga.Shaw Industries, the world's largest carpet maker, reclaimed 73.4 million pounds of carpet last year and is on pace to cut its water usage in half and reduce its energy consumption by 40 percent in the next decade and a half.
The Dalton-based floorcovering firm outlined its environmental improvements in its eighth annual sustainability report released this week. Shaw is currently taking part in the U.S. Department of Energy's Better Plants program, which aims to round up manufacturers and have them commit to cutting energy usage by 25 percent or more over a 10-year period.
Like all carpet manufacturers, Shaw is up against increasing public pressure to boost sustainability and in some places, government regulations mandating better solutions for carpet reclamation and recycling to reduce landfill use.
"Shaw is committed to continuous improvement and constantly driving innovation into our business based upon our perpetual quest for a deeper understanding of the needs of our customers, associates and communities," Vance Bell, chairman and CEO at Shaw, said in a statement.
In the 2015 sustainability report, Bell said "it was a year of investment for Shaw."
The company pushed $300 million into automation, multiple product categories and technology advancements last year, he said.
Shaw also rolled out new training programs in 2015, providing an average of50 training hours per employee, resulting in more than 1 million training hours total company-wide. Shaw employs around 22,000 workers worldwide at its 59 manufacturing facilities and 44 distribution facilities.
Paul Murray, vice president of sustainability and environmental affairs at Shaw, said "we will continue to look for opportunities to listen and learn as we develop innovative products, processes and programs."
Shaw and other flooring makers in recent years have sought market-based solutions to their own problems of sustainability and waste in an effort to drive consumption, waste and the bottom line down, all at the same time.
Along those lines, Shaw last year opened a $20 million carpet recycling plant in Ringgold, where certain carpet waste is broken down and remade into useful material for new products.
Among its long-term goals to reach by 2030, Shaw aims to:
- Reduce water usage by 50 percent
- Reduce energy usage by 40 percent
- Reach zero-waste- to-landfill status
- Create 100 percent cradle-to-cradle products
- Attain 0 percent OSHA incident rating
- Reduce non-biogenic greenhouse gas emission intensity by 40 percent.
Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.