Welcome to our “Viewpoint Series,” where each month, Nick Belcore, Executive VP at Peerless-AV, will delve into a pressing question in the Pro AV industry, offering insight into how businesses can evolve to meet the challenges of today’s rapidly changing environment.
For this first post of 2025, we’re examining a crucial topic: How can AV professionals ensure sustainability in an increasingly digital world?
The professional AV industry has a tremendous opportunity to follow several initiatives used by other industries to improve its ecosystem and contribute to global sustainability. One initiative is the concept of a “circular economy,” which emphasizes the development of refurbishment programs. These programs help extend the life of products and systems originally sold as new but may require updates or improvements to be resold in the used market. By reducing the need for new manufacturing cycles, this initiative helps decrease the waste incurred by the production process, ultimately conserving valuable resources and reducing the environmental footprint.
In addition to focusing on refurbishment and extending product life, selling products through sustainable supply chains is equally critical to fostering a healthier ecosystem. This involves ensuring compliance with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards, which guarantee that products are produced, transported, and disposed of in a way that minimizes harm to the planet and its inhabitants. Peerless-AV’s sustainability efforts, including our Mount Recycling Program for the hospitality industry, which helps divert old mounts from landfills through reuse and recycling, play a key role in this initiative. Our goal is to reduce waste and carbon emissions by giving products a second life, demonstrating that sustainability is not just a concept, but a tangible practice.
Sustainable packaging is another significant step forward. By using recyclable, reusable, or compostable materials, we reduce waste and ensure that products are packaged to minimize harm to the environment. At Peerless-AV, we are constantly improving our packaging solutions to ensure that they can be reused or repurposed to reduce environmental impact. We also emphasize the importance of working with partners who share our commitment to sustainability, ensuring that all stakeholders in the supply chain adhere to these high environmental standards.
Product engineering also plays a crucial role in sustainability efforts. Legacy products can be re-engineered to use materials that are more relevant to the needs of the technology they support today. Electronics are substantially lighter now compared to prior iterations so the amount of steel required to support them can also potentially be reduced. Similarly, the way in which products are assembled can be re-engineered to ensure that the product has the smallest possible packaging footprint, therefore using meaningfully less energy to ship the product. Likewise, during the new product development phase, products can be engineered to ensure minimal packaging and raw materials are used in their design.
It’s important to recognize the prevalence of “greenwashing” in many industries today. While some companies may claim to be environmentally conscious, their actual practices may not align with their messaging. It is critically important that buying decisions are influenced by a company’s sustainability efforts. As a result, that increased business fuels the innovation cycle that further reduces the manufacturer’s carbon footprint. Our team believes that true sustainability comes from consistent, verifiable actions. We are fully committed to these principles, actively working to reduce our own carbon footprint while encouraging sustainable practices throughout the industry. Our ISO 14001:2024 certification, which we earned in 2019, showcases our commitment to implementing effective environmental management systems. This international standard ensures that we continuously measure and improve our environmental impact, and since receiving the certification, we have diverted over 1,500 tons of waste from landfills, reduced carbon emissions by more than 6,140 tons, and cut natural gas consumption by over 26,000 therms annually.
Come back next month to see what AV industry topic we will cover in February!