Sustainability sells and saves
The diversity of responses to the environmental challenge across the
flooring industry is impressive – from mainstream consumer ranges,
through underlay and into installation and recycling, the trade has risen to the challenge.
Associated Weavers is a great example of this comprehensive
approach. It. has showcased examples of its uncompromising
commitment to sustainability – presenting consumers with exceptional
products alongside impeccable environmental credentials.
"The brilliance of Gaia comes from the excellent colour
fastness of polyester and its rich lustre."
The launch of Gaia, AW’s flagship polyester collection has been a huge
success - a “brilliant carpet with a natural touch”. The brilliance comes
from the excellent colour fastness of polyester and its rich lustre. The
touch has a softness and smoothness that belies the high-performance
resilience of polyester – a fibre which is also bleach cleanable.
Turn it over, and Gaia stays soft with its sustainable Eco FusionBac – a unique premium carpet backing made by fusing together a fleece layer and a woven polyester backing which is sourced 100% from recycled PET plastic bottles.
FusionBac makes carpet easy to install with fitterfriendly handling and its construction also improves a carpet’s heat and noise insulation as well as ensuring it lasts longer.
This backing is also being rolled out across other AW ranges including
Sedna, the top performance polyamide collection – made from recovered
nylon waste from fishing nets and industrial processes which means its
manufacturing was 70% carbon neutral.
Now, Associated Weavers has gone further to ensure the Sedna range
is totally carbon neutral – finding the missing 30% by investing in agroforestry projects in Kenya.
This is all part of a programme of sustainability that runs across all AW’s
operations and has seen the company reduce both energy consumption
and CO2 emissions by 25% over the last five years. Waste has been
rescued by 27% and water use by 21%.
In the vinyl sector, Kahrs has a great example of environmental initiative
in its new 100% natural bio-based vinyl free Aware collection which is
leading the way in the drive for sustainable floors.
The landscaping market is not forgotten with
Condor Grass launching “greenest artificial grass on the market”.
Condor Grass has built an enviable reputation in the artificial grass
world. Through its various products within the landscape and sports
sector, the company has worked with its commercial customers,
governments and municipalities, to offer products in a sustainable way
and they continuously work on optimising their production processes.
Condor aims to produce fully energy-neutral circular products in the
foreseeable future and they are already on their way with ranges like
ALLOA Pura. This type of artificial grass consists of only mono-material,
namely polypropylene. Its unique DNA allows the product to be recycled,
hence the name – ALLOA stands for ALL Over Again!
The underlay sector is especially sensitive to the sustainability agenda and has demonstrated enlightened initiative.
The renu underlay product from Interfloor was launched to great
acclaim – not least with the ultimate endorsement of 286 rolls being
installed at the Glasgow COP26 Climate Change Conference in 2021, all
of which were duly recycled at the end of the event.
Made from 98% recycled materials renu uses ethically sourced and
genuinely recycled materials, keeping waste from landfill, and is 100% recyclable itself.
In an Interfloor consumer survey 88% would choose a carpet underlay
that is recycled/recyclable over one that is not.
“Increasingly, these products are selling themselves into
a market of environmentally conscious consumers and that momentum can only grow as the sustainable agenda
gathers pace,”
said Lynn Bamber, head of marketing.
The high density 9mm foam of renu is big on performance too so there’s
no compromise in comfort and quality when the consumer makes a
sustainable choice.
For retailers, renu has unique POS support, manufactured from
sustainable materials, including recycled card- based product hangers and attractive wooden sample dispensers.
Ball and Young, part of The Vita Group, have had a ground-breaking
year in 2022 for sustainability. The Group is the first flexible PU Foam
manufacturer globally to have their science based targets verified by the SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative).
They have become one of less than 1,500 companies across the globe to have set ambitious targets that are in line with the reductions needed to meet the 1.5o set in the Paris Climate Accord.
The Group received an enhanced grading in the EcoVadis award
from Silver to Gold in 2022. This latest endorsement puts
Ball & Young and The Vita Group in the top 3% of
companies for their sustainability.
These achievements are not surprising when considering
that the company has been working on its sustainable
practices for over 25 years.
With the Cloud 9 range of industry-leading underlays, Ball and Young
provides the highest quality products made from offcuts of polyurethane
foam, or trim, from known and controlled sources, including the underlay
off-cuts taken back from customers to divert them away from landfill.
Only recycled flexible PU foam is used in the manufacture of the
underlay, which is sourced from within The Vita Group sister companies.
The paper backing on the underlay comes from managed replenished
wood stocks, and the final product is wrapped in recyclable packaging.
The company’s manufacturing processes are designed and monitored to
minimise environmental impact, and since March 2021, the Corby-based
plant has used 100% of its electricity from wind sources.
Over the past 25 years, the company has saved over 250k tonnes of
waste PU from going to landfill, that’s the equivalent of three Eiffel Towers.
Springbond is a range of sustainable PU foam alternative products for
contract, wholesale, and retail customers.
Springbond carpet underlay offers a valuable opportunity for any retailer
as an added-value sale. It is a high-performance carpet underlay providing added comfort, as well as insulation against impact sound, and heat loss. It is also chemical free, hypoallergenic and the only underlay to be approved by allergy UK.
Springbond also has an impressive array of sustainability
credentials including directly diverting single use plastics
from the environment and is seen as a conscious
consumer underlay with a great story.
Retailers appreciate having the chance to have a positive conversation
with their customers about sustainable products which ultimately allows
the consumer to make an educated and informed decision.
On the installation side, Lion Floor is the first hardboard panel to be
designed and manufactured specifically for the flooring industry. It is also
one of a very small number of fabricated underlays which can be used for LVT and other resilient floor coverings that meets British Standards and CFA guidance.
Made in Finland by Finnish Fibreboard with a construction
that eliminates the core gaps and overlaps of plywood,
Lion Floor is a high-quality and reliable alternative to
BS 8203 plywood that’s just as easy to install
and more sustainable.
Finnish Fibreboard manufactures Lion Floor from wood by-products,
making it one of the most environmentally friendly boards produced.
The wood by-product used is also sourced locally and from legally
managed, sustainable forests. Most of the energy required by the mill is
also produced with biofuel and modern evaporation technology is used
to treat production wastewater, reducing the footprint of production.
Combined with no added formaldehyde, Lion Floor comes with M1 and
PEFC certification and can be easily and safely reused or recycled.
The raw material for Lion Floor comes almost completely from
PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification)
certified forests, so its origin and journey can be traced all the way from
forest to finished product. The manufacturing process is based on a
Finnish tradition spanning more than 80 years, which has been honed to
perfection over the decades to meet the requirements of
modern construction.
Recycling is not only helping to save the
planet, it’s helping to save money in a
tight economic environment.
Carpet Recycling UK (CRUK) now has support from 80% of
textile flooring manufacturing and distribution sectors supplying the
UK market through its 16 core members, with another flooring group
joining imminently. This reflects a definitive increase in engagement
from the sector to act to reduce textile flooring waste and resource
usage, according to the not-for-profit membership association.
CRUK’s core members are Balsan, Betap, Brintons Carpets, Condor
Group, Cormar Carpets, ege Carpets, Furlong Flooring, Gradus,
Headlam Group, IVC Commercial, Likewise Floors, Milliken,
Modulyss, Rawson Carpet Solutions, Shaw and Tarkett. They are
acting voluntarily ahead of any legislation.
70% of UK textile flooring waste in 2020 was reported
to be diverted from landfill. The challenge is to move more
of it into higher end outlets to avoid a high proportion going
to energy-from-waste.
“The emphasis is on increasing market-based solutions through
research and development; and on the supply chain collaboratively
working to further develop circularity advancements in the carpet
and textile flooring sector ahead of anticipated Extended Producer
Responsibility. We want to encourage demand for sustainable
options from the top of the chain,” says Adnan Zeb-Khan, Manager.
“If more designers, developers and main contractors
focus on products made with recycled content or designed
with recycling in mind as well as end of life options,
this will help to reduce waste,”
says Adnan.
Facilities managers, fit-out and demolition firms are encouraged to
engage with CRUK to reduce the waste that ends up in lower value
outlets. Manufacturers and flooring contractors with single stream
offcuts can make huge savings through segregation and recycling.
Flooring retailers with high volumes of waste can making savings
through compaction and collection of segregated textile flooring waste.
For the past 10 years the Kenburn Carpet Crusher has helped
the flooring industry divert thousands of tonnes of recyclable carpet
and underlay waste from landfill.
Recycling is not only more cost effective than landfill, it also increases sales conversion rates as the public respond enthusiastically
to ‘’environmentally friendly’’ initiatives. Landfill tax increases on the 1st April so your skip costs will also increase again.
“Now may be the ideal time to arrange a free of charge
waste survey to allow Kenburn to advise you on how
their recycling scheme works, what the costs are and how
the compacted carpet and underlay waste is collected
and recycled,”
says Simon Wells of Kenburn.
Entries have just opened for the 2023 Recofloor vinyl flooring recycling awards, celebrating and sharing sustainability successes across the industry. “With zero waste targets spreading through supply chains, winning a Recofloor award is a great way for flooring firms to boost their profile and highlight sustainability credentials to prospective customers,” says Carla Eslava of Recofloor, the UK’s leading vinyl take back scheme. “It’s also a powerful motivator, giving a boost to hard-working teams.”
F. Ball and Co. Ltd. has made it easier for flooring contractors to
do their bit for the environment by further increasing the number
of locations at distributor partners across the UK where contractors
can deposit empty recyclable F. Ball buckets and bottles in branded
receptacles for recycling. The move takes the total number of recycling
points around the UK to 30.
The expansion of the company’s bucket and bottles recycling scheme is
in response to the continued popularity of the initiative, with bin-loads
of empty containers that would have otherwise been destined for landfill
being taken back for reprocessing.
F. Ball has introduced recyclable packaging for a number of products, with much of the new packaging itself manufactured from recycled materials, including fully recyclable versions of five and 20 litre plastic bottles used for liquids, primers and tackifiers.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
ASSOCIATED WEAVERS • + 32 55 230 211 •
BALL & YOUNG • 01536 200502 • www.ballandyoung.com
CARPET RECYCLING UK (CRUK) • 0161 440 8325 • www.carpetrecyclinguk.com
F. BALL AND CO. LTD. • 01538 361633 • www.f-ball.com
INTERFLOOR (renu) • 01706 213131 • www.interfloor.com
KENBURN •
01727 844988 •
www.kenburn.co.uk
