"This past year, I am proud of the work our team has done to serve our customers, yet I remain humbled by all the work that is still left to do."  - Phil Harmon, President

For more than 50 years, Universal Fibers has woven together design, sustainability, and industry into a common fabric that simultaneously supports our innovative customers and the planet. Since the beginning, our vision has always been to help the carpet industry thrive sustainably, and, today, we are proud to say Universal Fibers has made significant strides in investing in our people – both internal and external – to create unsurpassable quality with the lowest carbon footprint products in the world.

As a new year begins, it is worth reflecting on one of the most strenuous periods in living memory for manufacturers worldwide. We too weathered the storm. However, as a company built by lifelong learners, we were able to respond by investing even further into our consumers to meet their needs – wherever they were.

Recently, life has roared back into action and we have been there to support the recovery of our industry. From anticipating changes that inspire novel responses such as forging partnerships to create mask fibers to serving as more than just a fiber provider and collaborating on design with the experts we serve, Universal Fibers found its stride thanks to our customers.

It is our customers who inspire us to become industry leaders and raise the bar on service. Since we began serving clients, service has always provided a guiding light for our business. However, this year we went a step further and we galvanized our samples department to bring ideas to life through cultivating end-to-end collaboration that begins with unparalleled turnaround times for clients who are requesting to see our fibers in their own hands.

Our unmatched ability to animate ideas into a reality that matches our customers’ needs is due in large part to our fully-integrated, global supply chain. Like many others, we have been stretched and challenged over the last year due to pandemic-related constraints, and while these challenges still exist, we are applying ourselves diligently to restoring the world-class, holistic service that our clients have always known. From sourcing and production to shipping and transportation, our team is committed to creating solutions that stretch the limits of what we all thought was possible.

As a company built on innovative breakthroughs and inspiring “firsts,” our product development team is continuously reimagining what it means to create. This year, our collective imagination produced Thrive matter, the world’s first carbon negative fiber. By scrutinizing every component of our materials, our team was able to fuse art and science to create a brilliantly-colored, solution-dyed nylon fiber made from 100% post-industrial recycled resin.

While this may be our best fiber yet, we are already hard at work on the next generation of innovations that will top this one and support our customers in achieving their sustainability goals while providing the beautiful finishes that underpin high-end design.

High-impact, inspiring designs move us. We also know it moves our customers. So, this year we also invested in providing our customers with detailed fiber training that teaches the eye to see inspiring possibilities within the context of performance needs. Our educational partnership with our clients allows us to guide them through the process of discerning the performance, wear and maintenance of a fiber to lead to creative, but confident, selections.

Beauty, however, does not live in isolation. At Universal Fibers, we will continue to bring spaces to life while also persisting in pushing boundaries to lower our emissions and shrink our product carbon footprint. Our mission to blend beauty and sustainability defines our supply chain, our product development and how we guide our customers. Nevertheless, there is always room to grow, and so we will continue to challenge ourselves to do better. Always.

This past year, I am proud of the work our team has done to serve our customers, yet I remain humbled by all the work that is still left to do. There will always be challenges, but our values of industry-leading design, customer support and environmental sustainability will continue to push us forward. With each step we will keep moving toward a better future for all.