By Steven Feldman
PEBBLE BEACH, CALIF.—The Resilient Floor Covering Institute (RFCI) is firing on all cylinders. The organization is not only significantly growing its membership, but it is also growing in significance. That was clearly evident last month when the organization held its biannual meeting here.

Flooring industry veteran Dean Thompson, who assumed the presidency in 2007, spent his first few months working on the framework for the group’s strategic direction. “I did that because when you have a wide range of people in powerful positions, you don’t lack for opinions. We needed a consensus for what the organization should be doing. We got everyone engaged.”

The result is a group that is more focused than ever with a clear mission: to enhance the long-term growth and well being of the North American resilient flooring industry. “Well being entails everything from profitability to public perception to sustainability to safety,” Thompson said.

With RFCI’s mission in place, the association defined five clear goals:

1. Promote the resilient industry and product category. As an example, RFCI established an ongoing public relations program. The idea is to be something of a media clearing house for the industry and get the word out about the attributes of resilient flooring. Another example is RFCI’s relationship with organizations like the Vinyl Promotion Network and Vinyl Institute. Finally, RFCI is making “a huge investment” in the redesign and refocus of its Web site. “The site will provide a significant amount of information on the resilient flooring industry,” Thompson said. “We will have a sustainability center, a knowledge center and an idea gallery. This will become a portal site for the resilient industry.” The goal for completion is the end of first quarter 2010.

2. Position the resilient flooring industry as being environmentally responsible through voluntary product and industry programs that support safe, healthy and sustainable environments. Examples would include FloorScore, the program developed by RFCI in conjunction with Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) that tests and certifies hard surface flooring products for compliance with indoor air quality emission requirements adopted in California; and the NSF 332 sustainability standard. “NSF is going to be huge for this industry,” Thompson said. “All our manufacturers will have a sustainability assessment standard by which they can certify their products. That will be fully published by the end of 2010.” He added that while FloorScore addresses a single attribute (air quality), NSF 332 is a broad, multi-attribute sustainability standard.

3. Engage in advocacy with governmental and non-governmental entities regarding initiatives that may positively or negatively impact the resilient industry. “The HIRE Act is a great example of that,” Thompson said, who updated members on the bill’s progress at the meeting. “It is still in the House with at least 15 co-sponsors. We are waiting for Hank Johnson to bring it to the floor of the House for a vote. We feel we have a pretty good amount of support.”

In the meantime, Thompson said the 14-organization coalition behind the bill is working at the grass roots level “trying to leverage what we are doing through their own senators. I know Werner Braun of the Carpet & Rug Institute is already trying to gain some support in the Senate.”

Another initiative that supports this goal is RFCI’s involvement in the Flexible Vinyl Alliance, a coalition of organizations and manufacturers focused strictly on advocacy of flexible vinyl products. The first steering committee meeting was held Nov. 2 in Washington, D.C., which included some “pretty significant” players such as BASF, Eastman Chemical and Exxon Mobil.

4. Establish and maintain membership development programs at the associate and regular level. According to Thompson, the success of RFCI is dependent on a solid base of members as a revenue stream, so the group is always looking to expand. To that end, last year RFCI added Centiva, Metroflor and Roppe as regular members and Chapco, LG, Penn Color, Owings Corning and Exxon Mobil as associate members. The selling point is that RFCI leverages collective member resources to address industry issues and opportunities that exceed the scope of any single member company.

“FloorScore is just one example of something no company could do by itself,” he explained, “but RFCI’s collective resources has made it a successful program.”

5. Educate those who impact the perception, specification, sale and installation of resilient floor covering products. The idea here is to collaborate with various organizations. For example, “This past year we worked with Starnet and put together an education program with The Vinyl Institute,” Thompson said.

In other news:

• RFCI approved an initiative to provide financial support for the fcB2B. Thompson has agreed to sit on the board.

• Bill Hall, RFCI counsel, updated members on the pending climate change legislation, whose purpose is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “This impacts RFCI because as we move forward we will have to worry about how much greenhouse gas emissions the members produce in their manufacturing processes.” Manufacturers will have to be in compliance with EPA regulations and pending legislation.

• Hall also updated members on the Consumer Product Safety Act, which requires labeling for certain substances, whether they be toxic, an irritant, etc.