Our Green Agenda: where mission meets action

As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. This is a fundamental dynamic in our industry, where wireless mobile networks hold the power to create seamless connectivity everywhere — but they also have an impact on the environment we all share.

That is why ANDREW^® developed the Green Agenda. Its four guiding principles affect every decision we make throughout the lifecycle of our products in support of a broader goal to ensure a more sustainable future. We believe our planet faces urgent climate challenges, and the Green Agenda helps us address those challenges with a comprehensive and measurable methodology for minimizing waste, increasing reuse and developing solutions that meet rigorous performance goals while also reducing our environmental impact.

Too often, these kinds of programs are long on promises and short on specifics. By grounding our approach to sustainability in four practical principles, we give every ANDREW team the ability to act on this commitment every single day.

Together, these principles create a circular economy. Each principle builds on the next to ensure we find every opportunity to extend the lifecycle of our products, improve operational efficiency, and increase recyclability or repurposing of products when they reach end-of-life status.

1. Eco-friendly design

   It all starts with how we design our products. Eco-friendly design ideas can be applied to a wide range of outdoor and indoor wireless network products to help minimize waste, reduce energy consumption and incorporate more sustainable materials. The overall goal is to deliver high-quality and highly efficient products that create a more sustainable world. Some of the specific actions we take to ensure eco-friendly design include:
   • Assessing the environmental impact of product designs through Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs)
   • Reducing product weight and material usage
   • Incorporating recycled or recyclable materials
   • Improving product efficiency to consume less energy
   • Complying with relevant regulatory frameworks including RoHS, REACH and Restricted Substance
     Enabling customers to assess our products’ environmental impact through the SVScore^® system

2. Sustainable manufacturing processes

   Once our products have been designed in an eco-friendly manner, we minimize their environmental impact by reducing waste, conserving energy and choosing renewable energy sources in our manufacturing processes. Importantly, these choices do not compromise the quality or efficiency of our products. Some of the principles we apply regularly to maintain this commitment include:
   • Using less energy during manufacturing across all production sites
   • Driving a companywide transition to renewable energy sources
   • Removing single-use plastics from the supply chain
   • Certifying all manufacturing sites to the ISO 14001 standard

3. Rethinking packaging and logistics

   Making intelligent decisions related to how our products are packaged and shipped combine to reduce our environmental impact. With a goal of minimizing our carbon footprint and improving supply chain sustainability, we select eco-friendly materials, optimize transportation and reduce waste. Some of the actions we take to fulfill this principle include:
   • Creating packaging that allows higher container loading rates for better transportation efficiency
   • Minimizing or eliminating single-use plastics and non-recyclable materials from packaging
   • Digitizing documentation to reduce paper usage

4. Extending solutions lifecycles

   Once our products are installed in the field, we want them to stay in place and perform well for as long as possible. When our products last longer, they provide more value to our customers while simultaneously reducing our collective environmental impact. To do this, we focus on maintaining superior product quality and finding opportunities for reuse. Practically speaking, that means maximizing durability, improving efficiency and using a circular approach to product management. Examples of this include:
   • Optimizing end-of-life (EOL) management
   • Extending the lifespan of our products through refurbishment of base station antennas and filters

Practical actions make a daily difference

Mobile network operators around the world trust industry-leading ANDREW wireless infrastructure solutions because our approach to innovation — as demonstrated by the Green Agenda — embraces the idea of building smaller, smarter and more efficient.

Of course, our focus on a sustainable future doesn’t stop with these four principles. We will continue to assess their effectiveness and find other ways to improve sustainability. But we firmly believe that integrating sustainable practices is vital to ensuring a healthier environment for future generations. To this end, we will continue to do everything in our power to reduce our environmental impact and help our customers meet their own sustainability goals. Together is how we will make the most meaningful difference.

Learn more about The ANDREW Green Agenda now.