Uponor North America named former Director of Operations Rusty Callier as its new director of sustainability and corporate responsibility. The new, global role will have Callier leading the mission of aligning each sector of Uponor’s business toward sustainable growth.

“It’s a sign of the times—companies can’t get by with giving limited time to sustainability and corporate responsibility,” said Callier. “In order to balance the interests of shareholders, stakeholders, the environment and people you employ, there needs to be a message behind sustainability. It needs to be clear, it needs to be communicated and it needs to be practiced.”

Callier and his Uponor team have eight key projects they are spearheading between 2016 and 2020 to continue to advance their environmental responsibilities. One main project is partnering with the World Wildlife Fund Green Office Program, which is an environmental management system that aids in reducing an office’s ecological footprint and greenhouse gas emissions. Uponor will monitor and annually report activities, such as waste and energy efficiency. Uponor and the WWF will work together year-after-year to improve sustainable habits.

Also, the company promoted Tony Radcliff to the role of vice president of group technology for Uponor Corp., UNA’s parent company headquartered in Vantaa, Finland. Radcliff formerly was the vice president of marketing, offerings and engineering for UNA. Uponor Corp. oversees business in 30 countries and is looking to Radcliff to lead group technology across multiple segments.

“This is not only a new position for me, but a new direction for Uponor to align and globalize research, new product developments and other innovations,” says Radcliff. “From Germany to Finland to Spain to the United States, we want to develop platforms to support all our locations, not just the ones we office at every day.”
Uponor Corporation saw that innovation talent was being used at various locations for only regional impact and determined it should leverage all talent globally for its locations.

“We are confident that Radcliff is the person who can bring strategic insight to guide Uponor to that place of alignment with people, planet and profit in mind while at the same time enhancing current work flow and successes,” said Fernando Roses, executive vice president, Group Technology and Corporate Development, Uponor Corp..

Radcliff’s new role will allow for both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to benefit from the most talented engineers in the industry. Radcliff’s team members could be managing a project from Apple Valley, Minn., with engineers in Sweden while receiving customer feedback in Canada and Estonia. The idea is to take the best existing competencies, behaviors and processes from wherever they currently exist and bring them together to create a formidable global research, technology and new product development capability to benefit Uponor’s customers around the world.