Salem, N.J.—Mannington Mills has signed onto the United Nations Global Compact, demonstrating its commitment to advancing best practices concerning human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption.
The United Nations Global Compact, initiated in 2000 and billed as “the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative,” provides a universal language for corporate responsibility and a framework to guide all businesses regardless of size, complexity or location.
“This is an important step in our company’s ongoing journey to drive meaningful environmental change on a broad scale,” said Tom Pendley, president and CEO. “By committing to this compact, we are following one of our core values to ‘do the right thing.’ More importantly, we are aligning our sustainability strategies with an established and highly respected global framework that will create significant impact. As a private, family-owned company, we’re excited to be a part of this global compact working towards these important standards.”
Mannington Mills joins only a select few floorcovering manufacturers that have taken the public and voluntary step to sign the United Nations Global Compact in an effort to transform the world through principled business practices. Overall, there are approximately 18,000 companies and 3,800 non-business participants representing nearly every industry sector and size that have signed the compact.
To join the United Nations Global Compact, Mannington Mills completed a rigorous self-assessment to gain a baseline understanding of where it stood across the compact’s four key areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. The company will now report annually on the actions it has taken, the results it has achieved and the actions it plans to take to gain improvement across those areas. It also pledges to incorporate the compact’s “Ten Principles” into its overall strategies, policies and procedures. Mannington said it is already integrating new strategies and actions among its entire operations to apply the compact’s principles.
In the past year, Mannington Mills has also committed to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As the company works to reduce the absolute emissions from its operations and supply chain, it said it is committed to immediate reductions in global emissions by offsetting at 105% the equivalent “cradle-to-gate” greenhouse gas emissions of all of its domestically manufactured commercial flooring products. The company has also committed to full transparency on 100% of the ingredients used in its products by disclosing higher levels of information so customers can be better informed about Mannington’s environmental product standards.