On Saturday, March 25 from 8:30 to 9:30 PM local time, you might see lights being turned off around you. This Saturday marks the 11th annual Earth Hour, an initiative started in Australia through the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to help reduce the world's carbon footprint. According to their 2016 highlights, over 178 countries and territories took part in turning off their lights for one hour. This includes over 400 world famous landmarks including the Eiffel Tower. They estimate that over 1.2 million individual actions were taken to help reduce energy consumption during the hour. The popularity of Earth Hour has spread to over 7000 cities worldwide and is a growing method for everyone from homeowners to businesses to show their support for environmentalism.

Rather than focusing on one hour a year, Southwire has created initiatives to lower energy consumption company wide. Southwire is committed to environmental stewardship and values energy efficiency improvements as an important priority. We completed energy audits at three Southwire facilities in 2015 and discovered that our top 10 plants account for approximately 80% of Southwire's energy use. We have realigned and consolidated some of our plant production equipment in order to maximize operational efficiency. We also continually upgrade or modify equipment with the most energy efficient technology when possible.

Our on-going energy consumption reduction goal is to bring down our consumption by 10% in 2020 when compared to our 2010 baseline. As of 2015, we have brought our energy intensity down by 8%. On top of finding new ways to make our campus more energy efficient, we also encourage our employees to look for ways to reduce energy usage. In 2015, 340 gigajoules of fuel came from renewable sources and our total electricity consumption went from 1,794,200 in 2014 to 1,746,100 in 2015. We will continue to implement new ways to lower our energy consumption and do our part in reducing the global carbon footprint.

For more information on our sustainability initiatives, check out southwire.com/sustainability and look for our upcoming 2016 report.

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