By Emily Hooper
By now, it is no secret to those in the know the floor covering industry is deeply committed to sustainable manufacturing practices and products. However, the word is just getting outside the circle and people are impressed with what they see.

At a forum with carpet manufacturers, Ronald Lorentzen, acting assistant secretary for import administration with the Department of Commerce, said the U.S. carpet industry is among the greenest in the nation’s industrial sector and was impressed with the autonomy in which it has been implemented. “The thing that impresses me hearing from the corporate experiences is how integral to the business plan sustainability has become, and probably has been in their experience for quite some time.”

One of those things he is referring to is ANSI/NSF 140-2007, otherwise known as the Sustainable Carpet Assessment Standard for environmentally preferable building materials, the first multi-attribute approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the first-ever building-related product to received such a distinction.

NSF is a 65-year-old, not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, and is considered a world leader in standards development, product certification, education, and risk-management for public health and safety. In addition to ANSI, it is accredited by such organizations as the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and the Standards Council of Canada.

The 140 standard is based on life cycle assessment (LCA) principles and offers three levels of achievement for attaining various stages of reduced environmental impact—silver, gold and platinum. NSF 140 is primarily intended for commercial goods by providing a product evaluation methodology complementary to green building standards, but it can be used to evaluate any type of carpet. It applies to carpets for all types of buildings, including commercial office, education, government, healthcare and hospitality.

The carpet standard includes an easy-to-use rating system with established performance requirements and quantifiable metrics throughout the supply chain for Public Health and Environment; Energy and Energy Efficiency; Bio-Based, Recycled Content Materials or Environmentally Preferable Materials; Manufacturing, and Reclamation and End of Life Management.

“For the first time we have an industry consensus standard,” said James Lesslie, president of Beaulieu Commercial, which was the first mill to have products certified to the 140 standard (Editor’s note: Today, nearly every major carpet manufacturer has some of its products certified at one or more levels of NSF 140).

Lesslie said the standard “makes it easier for customers to make comparisons of the environmental products against claims of being green. From a sustainability standpoint, NSF 140 is one of the more important initiatives for the carpet industry. It’s one standard that can be used to compare products.”

Certification is achieved on a point-based evaluation system through five categories. The standard takes into account sustainability as it relates to manufacturing processes; reclamation and end-of-life management; energy usage and energy efficiency; the use of bio-based, recycled or environmentally preferable materials, and steps an organization takes to minimize adverse public health, environmental and community impacts.

Resilient answers call with NSF 332
As with the carpet sector, resilient flooring manufacturers say an NSF certification standard for sustainability is a potential game-changer. Resilient floor coverings include vinyl tile, sheet vinyl, rubber, polymeric and linoleum products.

Similar to the carpet standard, ANSI/NSF 332 addresses environmental performance and sustainability attributes of resilient products and provides a means to track incremental changes to the products’ sustainability profile. NSF 332 is intended to provide a consistent framework in which to evaluate and assess the sustainable nature of different products by comparing products with similar functions. It is applicable to products manufactured in one facility or multiple facilities, one country or multiple countries.

The standard has been designed to satisfy the following criteria:

• Demonstrate how resilient floor covering products can conform to the environmental, economic and social principles of sustainability throughout the supply chain;
• Demonstrate conformance with International Standards Organization (ISO) Type 1 (14024) and Type 2 (14021) environmental labeling and declaration requirements;
• Show conformance with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines for the use of environmental marketing claims;
• Create confidence in the various stakeholders (manufacturers, suppliers, regulators and consumers) that products labeled with a third- arty certification mark consistently meet the requirements of this program, and
• Encourage participation by all manufacturers of resilient floor coverings to improve environmental performance.

Dean Thompson, president of the Resilient Floor Covering Institute (RFCI), said the market has been begging for simplicity, and this standard delivers that. “Architects and design firms are all in a state of confusion because of the influx of all these green labels. NSF 332 brings clarity to this issue and will allow specifiers and purchasers to make better decisions when selecting resilient floor coverings.”

NSF officials point out sustainable products provide environmental, social and economic benefits to meet the needs of the present generation while protecting public health and the environment for future generations.

“The overall goal of our certification program is to improve the sustainability profile of [in this case resilient floor coverings and carpet] and, over time, allow the industry to achieve higher levels of sustainable manufacturing,” said Petie Davis, manager for NSF’s sustainability services.

Like its carpet counterpart, the NSF 332 standard utilizes a point-based system in which manufacturers may achieve one of the increasingly rigorous levels of certification: conformant, silver, gold and platinum. The standard includes prerequisite requirements as well as performance requirements and quantifiable metrics in five key areas: informed product design, intelligent product manufacturing, long- term value, progressive corporate governance, and innovation.

For more information on either standard, contact NSF at 800.673.6275 or visit nsf.org.