By Matthew Spieler
Claims of green abound, but is there such a thing as environmentally friendly flooring? Interestingly enough, the answer is most certainly yes.

What is it? That’s a harder question to answer. While new ways of measuring and studying green are making it easier to come up with a definition, currently there is no standard for what constitutes being green.

Still, there are some generally accepted methods for classifying something as being environmentally friendly, and it just so happens the flooring industry as a whole is way ahead of the curve in this field.

When one looks at the manufacturing side of the industry in total, you see that many of the raw materials used come from natural, renewable sources; have the ability to be recycled over and over—like paper and aluminum cans—are from other products that would end up in the landfill, or can be reused by other industries instead of going to the dump.

Generally speaking, the flooring industry not only leaves a small carbon footprint compared to its size and scope, it provides some of the friendliest, healthiest products in the building industry.

Because there are different degrees of green associated with different types of flooring, one needs to keep up with the various types of certifications and levels since today’s eco-conscious consumer is coming in armed with information from a plethora of sources—and not all of them are accurate.

The following is a small sampling of what you can discuss with your clients— from consumers to facility managers—when they start to ask questions about the greenness of flooring.

Raw materials

It depends on the category of flooring one is talking about, but every segment of the industry utilizes some type of eco-friendly raw material.

Here’s a brief look at what each segment offers: carpet—wool and bio-based polymers; rugs—wool and cotton; resilient—linseed oil, rubber, limestone, recycled leather and bio-based polymers; wood—cork, bamboo, internationally recognized third-party certification of sustainably harvested wood; ceramic— clay, and laminate—rapidly renewable wood species such as pine, and natural dyes and pigments.

Looking more closely, some manufacturers have the ability to take post-consumer carpet, and convert it back into new carpet without any degradation of quality to performance or styling. Many are investing in this area and more are being able to do this with each year.

Talk about salvaged products. For example, some hardwood flooring manufacturers are reclaiming product from riverbeds, dilapidated buildings and old wine casks. Carpet is also one of the biggest re-users of plastic soda and water bottles—breaking them down to their original polyester plastic stage and turning them into carpet. In fact, there is a new facility currently under construction, and when it comes fully online the industry will be using approximately half of the bottles the country throws out each year. In resilient, mills are taking items such as used drywall and incorporating them into their products.

With all the talk of illegal logging and deforestation, the issue of harvesting is critical. Here, the industry is taking a very progressive stance, from discontinuing the use of certain types of species such as merbau to ensuring wood comes from a sustainably harvested source.

Which brings us to certification. Many end users are being trained to seek out products that are certified as environmentally friendly. In flooring there is no shortage, as there are a number of internationally recognized third-party organizations that have provided certification saying a certain type of flooring product is sustainable. These would include the U.S. Green Building Council, Scientific Certification Systems, Forest Stewardship Council, GreenGuard Environmental Institute, Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and so on.

Transportation

This is a tricky area since, like all industries, there are a number of products and/or raw materials that are imported.

Luckily, the flooring industry in general is a North American based industry. And, in recent years, many European tile and laminate companies have set up shop in the U.S. and Mexico as they recognize the benefit of having product designed, produced and distributed locally. With concerns over illegal logging and endangered exotic species, many companies have turned to local, sustainable forests in North America for material. While Dalton, Ga., is considered the carpet capital of the world, there are manufacturing facilities scattered all over with a decent amount of mills still located on the West Coast.

What does all this mean? Generally speaking it is not too difficult to find products made or grown within a 500-mile radius of a jobsite. Five hundred miles is a widely accepted figure for a product’s greenness when it comes to being transported.

Installation

Here again, the industry not only shines, it leads the way and has been at the forefront of innovation. In fact, flooring has set the standard when it comes to eco friendly installation methods, some of which are being copied by other industries.

While makers of the actual floor covering product, are the ones often in the spotlight, the adhesives side of the industry has been leading the way for years in developing eco-sensitive products. Whether it is no- or low-emitting volatile organic compounds (VOCs), to water-based formulas, today’s glues are as green as can be, all while maintaining their strength and durability.

Beyond glue, there is the use of mechanical locking, or click, systems. These applications eliminate the need for adhesives and also cut down on the amount of tools and other resources traditionally needed to install a floor.

First used in the laminate category, locking systems can now be found in virtually every category. In fact, in wood, click systems are now used with approximately 15% of all the engineered products produced and the percentage is rapidly rising.

Maintenance and daily use

As with any product in life, flooring must be properly maintained to get the most use out of it—you not only have to bring your car in for a tune-up, you need to clean off the debris so as not to damage the exterior.

In addition, the floor chosen must meet the lifestyle it will be used for otherwise it will quickly fail. For instance, you wouldn’t put an elegant wood floor in a room used by three large dogs.

The old saying, “you get what you pay for,” could not be more true of a statement when it comes to flooring. The cheaper the product, the less durable it will be and the quicker it will need to be replaced. The longer a floor can stay in use, less overall energy is consumed having to make a new product and the less material is wasted from ripping up the old surface.

Cleaning and maintenance is of the upmost importance in every flooring category. In fact, some carpet manufacturers take the issue so seriously, they have incorporated proper maintenance as a stipulation to uphold the product’s warranty.

In other categories, mills have started to “finish” the product in the factory instead of it being done on-site. This avoids particles from flying around the indoor environment as well as any chemical off-gassing. So, when the floor comes to the home it is ready to use with no worries of indoor air quality being disturbed.

End of life

No matter how well one takes care of their floor, there will come a time that it needs to be replaced. The average floor life can vary from seven to 12 years, though there are some, such as in the wood, tile and resilient categories that last for 20 or more years. And there are still some going strong after more than a century in use.

So what happens when it is time to replace the old floor? In carpet, the industry has partnered with local, state and federal governmental agencies as well as non- government entities to form the Carpet America Recovery Effort ( CARE) for the purpose of diverting post-consumer product from the landfill. To date, the non-profit CARE has helped keep more than one billion pounds of used carpet out of the dumps to be either recycled back into carpet or cushion, or into another product for use in a different industry.

Resilient mills are also starting to take back post-consumer product and incorporating a larger and larger percentage into new products.

Some floors, such as those that use a mechanical locking system have the ability to be donated for further use. Habitat for Humanity is one source that has partnered with both mills, retailers and contractors to reclaim these products for use in the homes it builds for low income families.

Products that are made from all natural materials have the ability to decompose back to the earth, providing nutrients for future generations of resources.