CMC adopts acronym as company name

The Irving, Texas-based scrap recycling and steelmaking firm known for decades as Commercial Metals Co. (CMC), will now go simply by the acronym CMC. The company also has introduced a new logo in a rebranding campaign that has started this month.

While making, buying and selling metal remain core activities for CMC, the company also says it is a global solutions provider to the construction industry. In addition to its network of scrap yards and scrap-fed electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mills, CMC also sells downstream products used at construction sites via its Tensar, Tendon Systems and EDSCO Fasteners business units.

CMC says the goal of the rebrand is to create a refreshed identity to better represent the goals, commitments and evolution of the 108-year-old company.

“For more than a century, CMC has been recognized as a metal recycling and steelmaking company,” CMC President and CEO Peter Matt says. “Our original name, Commercial Metals Co., made sense as we acquired companies that fell under our umbrella as a metals company. But as we began executing on CMC’s growth strategy to expand the scope of products and solutions we provide to our customers beyond metals, we identified both a need and an opportunity to portray the company in a different way.

“Recent important acquisitions, including Tensar, Tendon Systems and EDSCO Fasteners, are critical examples of CMC’s move beyond its roots in steel production to new opportunities across the construction industry. We are thriving and as we’ve evolved; how we present ourselves to the world needs to change, too.”

The company has grown from a single scrap yard in Dallas in 1915 to a Fortune 500 company with hundreds of facilities and nearly 13,000 employees serving customers.

While most of CMC’s operations are in the United States, it also operates a steel mill in Poland, several scrap yards and Tensar production locations in Europe and sales offices in both Europe and Asia.

Additionally, CMC says the tagline, “It’s what’s INSIDE that counts,” addresses not only to the nature of the company’s products found in critical infrastructure worldwide, but also to its culture and the employees who produce them.

“Together, these elements form an identity that represents the people who make up CMC today: innovative, diverse, filled with energy and ready to conquer the challenges ahead. It’s both a nod to our company’s roots and the promise of a bright and sustainable future," Matt says.

The move by CMC is not the first rebrand in the recycling sector this year, with Schnitzer Steel Industries having changed its name to Radius Recycling this summer.

In the hauling and recycling sector, Houston-based Waste Management Inc. announced last year it was rebranding, like CMC, to go strictly by its acronym of WM.

Earlier this year, the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), hinted it also may seek a name change, after finding the word “scrap” still had unclear or even negative connotations with many members of the public.

That association, which represents a large percentage of the U.S. recycling industry, is marking this Friday as Manufacturing Day and is conducting a campaign to focus on “amplifying our message that recycled materials are essential to manufacturing.”

In an email promoting the effort, ISRI also refers to its 13-page “Common Language for the Recycled Materials Industry” booklet.

In that publication, ISRI writes, “Today, when we introduce ourselves as the ‘scrap’ industry, people throw us in a box alongside “junk yards, leftovers and trash.”

The association recommends using the term “recycled materials,” about which it says, “We’re putting ourselves in a better box without so much baggage.”