INSIGHT ISSUE 01 | 2021

8 Enabling the Digital and Energy transition Srinivas Siripurapu, Chief R&D Officer of the Group, wrapped up the event with his presentation on the criteria that guide the group’s innovation strategy, and an overview of what the group is doing in terms of sustainable products. Prysmian Group invests over €100 million annually in Research & Development, and more than 75% of the group’s innovation spending is focused on conceiving and commercializing low carbon products. “We at Prysmian group strongly believe that sustainability and innovation are linked together,” said Siripurapu. “At the heart of our innovation strategy is our business strategy: to be our customers preferred cables solution provider. That means being more sustainable.” Prysmian’s most recent technological innovations in energy cables include the P-Laser cable systems ensuring greater transmission capacity, high performance and environmental sustainability (100% recyclable material and up to 40% reduction in CO2 emissions); cables for installation in HVDC links in long lengths; synthetic armored cables for record-depth submarine installation; and grid monitoring and management technology. Prysmian is also committed to innovation in optical fibre and cables, recently launching the BendBrightxs 180µm fibre, the world’s thinnest bend-insensitive optical fibre. It has succeeded in developing cables with an ever-greater fibre count and density and an ever-smaller cable diameter: the 6,912 fibre FlexRibbon, the optical cable with the highest fibre count in the industry, and the Sirocco HD and Sirocco Extreme micro duct cables. “We strongly believe that sustainability and innovation are linked together. They are like running a marathon. It’s not a sprint. To quote Simon Sinek, we are playing ‘The Infinite Game’.” Srinivas Siripurapu Chief R&D Officer “At Prysmian I believe we are creating products to help customers play a key role in digitalization. Especially on the telecoms side. And we are also doing things to improve sustainability in our own company, like the digital design tool to calculate the carbon footprint of our products.” Leegan Boudreau Telecoms R&D engineer, Bishopstoke “To me, in a word, sustainability is involvement. It’s changing the status quo in the environmental and social habits in our daily lives at both work and at home. We need to embed it into our routines in order to see sustainability as something we can have an impact on, and not something that someone else will take care of.” Andrea Banfi Supply Chain Manager, Milan